M.A.R.
Manifest Artist Residency
2016/2017
Adam Mysock
Adam Mysock (b. 1983, Cincinnati, Ohio) holds a BFA degree in Painting and Art History from Tulane University and an MFA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Having served as the coordinator for the city of Cincinnati's MuralWorks program post graduation and as a Professor of Practice at Tulane University from 2008 to 2016, Adam's artistic practice has flourished both within and outside of academia.
Adam's work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and is in private collections throughout the world. His work has been awarded 'Best in Show' in the Ogden Museum's Louisiana Contemporary Juried Exhibition and included in New American Paintings.
Most recently, Mysock has exhibited at VOLTA NY, Galerie Andreas Binder in Munich, Germany, the Contemporary Arts Center of New Orleans, and is part of the traveling group exhibition Guns in the Hands of Artists.
Mysock is currently painting for solo or two-person exhibitions to be held in New Orleans, New York, Munich, and the John P. Weatherhead Gallery at the University of Saint Francis within the next two years.
Artist's Statement:
Telling stories is a part of human nature; it's how we relate to one another. The stories we have in common help us create sincere connections to our neighbors and our surroundings. What's more, storytelling for better or worse typically involves hyperbole. We tend to exaggerate; we tend to lie.
Generally, we believe we control our narrative embellishments. What gets exaggerated from one telling to another gets exaggerated to challenge our listeners. What gets repeated gets repeated because it resonates with them. What gets omitted gets left out because it's lost its meaning. We actively use embellishment to keep our audiences engaged.
Given enough distance, however, sources and accuracy fade out and substitutions become the new norms. Quietly, time redefines what is truth and what is fiction.
As a painter, I'm preoccupied by the undeniable role that the image plays in creating this acceptance of the fictional. A painting has the authority to make the intangible concrete, and a series of them has the ability to authenticate a fabrication in our collective memory.
When I begin a piece, I typically start with preexisting images, artifacts from this collective remembrance. I look for images that shape my pictorial consciousness, that are hard to question because when I first saw them they were presented as the truth. They have to capture my imagination and they have to feel largely descriptive of a greater story. From them, I'm given my task—I have to disrepair them. I have to consolidate an earlier world of historical and cultural visual-fact with an evolving understanding of subtlety and gradation. I find that the discrepancies I discover between the absolute and the nuanced inspire me most.
The resultant work is largely about storytelling, the ownership and authorship of our culture's visual narratives, and the parallels between those tales. It's meant to challenge the truth of source and the source of truth. After all, as Franz Kafka once wrote, "It is hard to tell the truth, for although there is one, it is alive and constantly changes its face."
The images pictured at right are a sampling of those submitted with his application.
See more and learn about Adam's work here:
www.AdamMysock.com
Information on how to apply for future MAR awards can be found here.
