Adam Mysock

ADAM MYSOCK

Having Missed the Mark with Our Grief, 2020

acrylic on panel

7h x 14.25w in

After: The Death of Seneca by Manuel Domínguez Sánchez (1871) and Eaton's Neck, Long Island by John Frederick Kensett (1872)

Painted as a response to the ongoing conversations about race and policing in the United States in 2020, Having Missed the Mark with Our Grief focuses on the problem of the “But what about…” conversations that too often accompany discussions about systemic racism and discrimination. From the nonsensical All Lives Matter crowd to the virtue-signaling of more well-meaning, empathetic groups, people outside of BIPOC communities too frequently seem ready to misdirect valuable attention away from meaningful change toward their own unthreatened subcultures.

Having Missed the Mark with Our Grief presents a mourning white male pulled from The Death of Seneca hovering above the shore of Eaton’s Neck, far from an “X” drawn in the sand. The setting is simple and uncomplicated beyond the target on its shore. However, the forlorn figure draws the spotlight away from the marked terrain toward his dramatic presentation of suffering.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Surmountable Problem Writ Large, 2020

acrylic on panel

9h x 14.25w in

After: The Young Beggar by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (c. 1645-50) and Approaching Thunder Storm by Martin Johnson Heade (1859)

The main character of this painting finds himself mired in a pond as a sizeable storm approaches, and yet – instead of standing up and removing himself from the trouble – he chooses to focus on the discomfort of his wet clothing.

This child, attending to a minor nuisance rather than enacting a permanent solution, stands in as an icon of our current sociopolitical leadership – leadership which has defined our modern reality by its preference for constantly kicking the can on major issues (climate change, income inequality, various forms of discrimination, and so much more) as the rest of us are left to watch from the shore.

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ADAM MYSOCK

Distorted Perspectives, 2019

acrylic on panel

6.06h x 7.38w in
15.40h x 18.73w cm

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Fool, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

I’ve heard that in centuries past, the jester – or fool – was often one of the only people able to speak truth to power. Because of their inherent absurdity, they were permitted to deliver unpleasant information to the influential.

We need that now. We need people able to speak truth to the powerful, to hold a mirror directly up to their faults.

Fortunately, every time a lie is told, those who fall for it are made to look foolish. It seems to be happening more and more with our increasing number of media platforms. Surely someday soon, looking foolish will transition into acting foolish, and acting foolish will yield an actual fool. Maybe then a fool will be able to speak truth to the lying powerful.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Horrifying Self-Actualization, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

At some point the lying has to stop, right? But when? I’m no longer convinced that any external stimulus can reverse a liar. People don’t lie because of a lack of penalties; getting in some sort of trouble is part of the action.

I suspect that any revision of a liar’s behavior can only come from within.But I have no idea how a liar, whose natural state is one of defensiveness, can be made to acknowledge the consequences of their misdirections. That’s the scary part of living in our current political climate.

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ADAM MYSOCK

An Automated Message, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

Our technology is staggering. We now have computers that can lie for us. For proof you only need to head over to any online comment board to read statement after statement from foreign and domestic “bots.”

If lying is a lazy response to complexity, having a computer lie for you admirably redefines laziness for a new era.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Platform, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

I’ll blame everything wrong with America on Ted Turner. Don’t misread me – he didn’t do anything that grave. But he did invent the 24-hour news cycle with CNN. And that gave way to any number of other all-day news networks, scrabbling to find content to fill every minute of every day. The result is unimportant events, comments, or opinions being elevated to headline news.

Now we have some difficulty seeing the forest for the trees when it comes to politics, national and international policy, interpersonal relationships, everything. We’ve learned to react to every single occurrence in a way that exhausts our ability to effectively filter out lies from truth.

The 24-hour news cycle has been one of the greatest gifts to the lie because it offers unvetted liars a platform while simultaneously grinding down citizens’ ability to pay attention to the meaningful moments surrounded by so much noise.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Tutor, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

While the statement for this show indicates that there are no formal teachers of proper lying technique, it doesn’t deny that there are individuals out there who are providing master classes on lying for those inquisitive enough to study their templates.

Kellyanne Conway is one such informal educator. In weekly interviews, she offers lesson after lesson in diversion, denial, and outright fabrication.

Ultimately, a mentor who doesn’t realize they’re mentoring fails to effectively communicate methodology. We can only do our best to imitate their example. And imitation of informal tutorials inevitably leads to some eccentric deviations, some personal styles. In a waylying is a hyper-personal form of communication. No one lies exactly like anyone else because we all lack a formal education system for it.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Willing Ignorance, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

When considering the factors that are required (or at least helpful) for a lie to succeed, I constantly look to the audience. I constantly try to take inventory of the nature of its members. It’s easy to generalize the gullible as willfully ignorant, as unwilling to see things as they are. And there’s probably truth in that.

But generalizing like that prevents us from asking about the circumstances that led to their willingness to be ignorant. How do you encourage someone to forego their curiosity in order to simply consume whatever’s said to them? For me, curiosity seems to be the enemy of the lie. Curiosity is the antidote.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Repetition, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

For a lie to gain real power, it must continue its existence separate from its creator. If it can be repeated by others, retold in a variety of contexts, it has undeniable influence. If it can separate itself from its birth, a lie has real control.

I suppose it’s the ultimate goal for career liars – to create a self-perpetuating fiction. But it scares me to think of something I’ve invented living on without my guidance. I suppose that’s why I lack any real desire to lie for a living.

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ADAM MYSOCK

An Audience Unaware, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

Learning to lie is a bit like learning how to play a game. There are strategies. There’s an opponent. It can be fun because it’s a challenge.

And of course, that competition is easiest when you’re playing against an inferior opponent. Lying is most effortless when the audience isn’t fully paying attention. The problem arises from the fact that engaging with a half-attentive audience tends to leave us dissatisfied.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Bit Too Far, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

As we seek this fine line separating safe lying from detrimental misdirection, we often have to cross it in order to see it.

We’ll always take lying too far on occasion. Perhaps our best hope is to look for canaries in the coal mine of lying. Learning to lie involves a lot of observation of other liars. Recognizing the failures of others give us an idea of our own fictionalizing boundaries.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Tentative Probe, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

The search for limits is an ongoing endeavor. Circumstances change. Environments shift. What was tolerable one day is offensive the next. As is the opposite. We’re always looking for the fine line that separates safe lying from detrimental misdirection.

Lies essentially stand as markers of a zeitgeist. As times change, so does the nature of our fiction. Lying evolves as a practice. It has a lineage and a life.

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ADAM MYSOCK

An Allowance to Try Again, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

Whenever I’ve watched The Wizard of Oz, I’ve always been struck by the same thing – that the actor who plays the Wizard, Frank Morgan, plays several other parts. There’s always been something impressive about that level of reinvention (even separated from the movie’s plotline about a middle-aged man pretending to be a magical wizard).

Essentially, lies (false identities) allow his figure to do so much more than any single persona could. Lies can offer the opportunity to reinvent your sense of self, to explore different aspects of your personality. And they can become overly seductive because of that.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A False Prophet, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

Similar to the regular fall of the Democrats, Brian Williams positioned himself as a figure worthy of our trust nightly. He convinced us that we could believe what he had to say. And he was effective. Maybe it had something to do with the pity-inducing tilt of his eyebrows.

So, when it was revealed that he’d fabricated a heavily promoted story about his exposure to a warzone, he fell harder and further than someone without that trust would have.

Brian Williams became another figure in history whose primary role was to illustrate the undoing of the dishonest. He showed us that when you lie, you should do it in relative isolation without the potential for others to refute your claims.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Weak Compromise, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

Democrats promote themselves as consistently ethical. So, when they inevitably get caught lying, the fault is compounded by their hypocrisy. Had they just never gotten our hopes up in the first place, the fall wouldn’t be so hard.

When we lie to ourselves about who we really are, our lies to others are exponentially more threatening to our stability.What is the harm in acknowledging that lying is natural, that no one is wholly ethical?

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Sense of Guilt, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

I suppose I like to believe that liars know they’re lying. I like to believe it’s a controlled activity. And if they know what they’re doing, I trust that they realize that lying isn’t something everyone does.

Figures like Fred Rogers offer us all an alternative path, away from a life of lying. But being Mr. Rogers surely involves a great degree of discipline or sacrifice. And who has time for that?

Constantly being decent takes focus and energy. Lies are easy. Lies take little effort. Lies happen when we’re sleepy.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Pretty Face and a Nice Body, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

We tend to exercise differing levels of tolerance for different liars. Some people get called out immediately, while others are given a pass time and time again. It begs an investigation into which factors define the former group and which define the latter.

I think it’s safe to say that being attractive and/or wealthy certainly help garner support and certain clemency. But perhaps there are other characteristics that help.

The more agreeable characteristics we have, the more likely it is that we’ll be excused from our false actions. But this likability requires maintenance in the same way a lie does. Let your guard down for too long and you’ll find yourself out of favor quickly.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Role Model, 2018

acrylic on canvas

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

When we combine the power of lies to persuade with their ability to establish a false hierarchy, we end up with Charles Ponzi – the eponym of the Ponzi Scheme. Charles Ponzi developed a fraud in which early investors in a nonexistent enterprise are paid from money invested by later investors. His lies required constant upkeep in order for it to succeed.

And this is the reality of lying – The maintenance of a lie is endless. The bigger the lie, the more time we spend caring for it.

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ADAM MYSOCK

An Overreach, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

There’s a fear of inferiority that lies behind so much misinformation. We don’t want our truest selves, our real, flawed selves to be criticized, so we use dishonesty to create protective barriers. In much the same way, the Dodo character in Alice in Wonderland attempts to conceal his ignorance with confidence.

When threatened with real or imagined criticism, lies offer a first line of defense. Our artifices keep us safe and untried.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Seduction, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

We have a wonderful capacity to impose fictions on others in order to make them desirable. We only need a few kernels of possibility to transform a fish into a beautiful mermaid when we’ve exhausted ourselves of all other options.

The lies we tell ourselves about others make the world a more exciting place, or certainly a more comfortable one.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Frail Attempt, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

We desire attention, but no one likes a show-off. So, we’ve sharpened our ability to practice false modesty. We pretend to cover ourselves but rehearse the bare minimum efforts in order to keep people engaged – just as Venus covers herself without hiding much.

This type of lying allows us to maintain an optimistic, internal conception of our own morality and humility, while publicly producing the opposite result. Outward gestures of lying allow us to construct psychological protections against our ability to recognize undesirable traits within ourselves.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Bid to Gain Attention, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

The concept of Munchausen Syndrome offers another perspective on lying. When we lie, we can get attention. If we’re good at it, we can even get sympathy. And everyone likes being cared for.

Lies have the potential to establish relationships otherwise missing.Of course, they can also destroy relationships. It just takes a keen awareness of your audience and their available compassion.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Lack of Consequence, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

Forgive and forget. That’s what we’re taught to do with those who’ve wronged us. But what happens in a world without a memory? What if we’re unable to forgive if all we can do is forget?

When we lie, there’s someone or something injured. They are painted in a false light, as something they aren’t. We take away their agency of self-determination.

If we are never required to seek forgiveness for such an action, we can’t be required to assume an empathy (albeit a forced empathy) for the objects of our lies. If lies don’t hound us, we have no obligation to learn about nuanced realities.Life becomes polar, and we can unassumingly maintain the disinterest that encourages lying in the first place.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A First Apology, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

If we are caught lying, it is the suddenly being singled-out that proves most unsettling. We are temporarily relieved of our ability to define our own public image. It’s turned over to a judge or jury, and it forces us to become momentarily subservient to others.

But that term – momentarily – perhaps carries the most weight. There’s a pace to our lives in the digital era that prevents events from surviving for any great length of time. As long as we’re able to navigate the bumpiness of an initial accusation, we can take comfort in the fact that another liar will soon replace us in the public eye, that we’ll likely avoid any real atonement.

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ADAM MYSOCK

An Opportunity to Test, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

Knowing what we do about insufficient consequences, we will always test the limits of acceptable lying. We’ll come to terms with a spectrum of lying – from little, white lies to bald-faced lies – and a classification system of lies – lies of omission, lies of commission, etc. And it won’t even matter if we’re aware that we’re doing it.

Lying has become a tool for achievement. If it benefits us once, we’ll always consider trying it again.

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ADAM MYSOCK

An Attempt at Morality, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

Akin to the historical narratives we’re fed in an attempt to steer us away from a life of lies, the narrative of Adam, Eve, and the serpent in Genesis presents a clear set of tenets from which we’re expected to learn. Listen to God, get a good life. Follow a lie of a serpent (arguably the first lie), and you’ll be punished forever.

When we consider distance and degree, however, the parable’s message can be quickly cast aside. If there is any truth to the story of Eden, we’re now so many generations into the punishment that it has lost its threatening potential. And it takes very little experience to recognize that the punishment for an offense on the scale of eating a forbidden fruit is usually inconsequential. We have learned to accept the minor punishments that accompany most of our lying as a part of everyday life. They aren’t deterrents anymore.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Counter Example, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

We’ve assigned a great deal of responsibility to our shared cultural figures when it comes to teaching lessons about truth, fiction, and morality. We used to tell stories about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and then professing that he could not tell a lie. We’ve renamed Abraham Lincoln “Honest Abe” and recounted numerous tales of his integrity.

But we are rarely offered real-world or contemporary examples of such ethics. The concept of honesty is inadvertently assigned to history. But the perception of an honest lineage gives all of us the impression of a moral superiority, of a certain invented soapbox from which we can preach our opinions as truth. We use our shared, piecemeal history of honest men to blind ourselves to our digressions from truth.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Reliable Pardon, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

As we invariably test the waters of lying, we quickly learn to recognize the more forgiving members of an audience. Rest assured – someone loves you enough to overlook your dishonesty.

And it’s these people that indirectly encourage liars to escalate their fictitious experimentation. Each time we tell a greater lie, we turn to see how our most loving audience members receive us. If our supporters fail to draw a line in the sand, we grow braver with our lies and less tethered to anything grounding.

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ADAM MYSOCK

An Exciting Unknown, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

Developing almost simultaneously with my appreciation of mannequins, I fell in love with what I now know as cryptozoology. I remember watching various tv shows about figures like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster and being fascinated by the immateriality of these characters.

It was as if the more vague an idea, the more ownership our imaginations might exercise over it. When we are forced to fill in the multiple cracks of a particular narrative with our fears, expectations, or hopes, we become a part of that myth. And when we insert ourselves in a lie to settle it, it becomes that much harder to recognize the truth elsewhere.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Constant, Attractive Artifice, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

For some reason, mannequins seemed to be everywhere when I was growing up. Maybe it was growing up during the heyday of malls in America. Nevertheless, with their clearly artificial features, postures, and groupings, mannequins have always been created to illustrate an unachievable version of reality, to establish an envy of something unreal.

They are lies made physical. For a kid of the 1980s, they’re the earliest ancestor of any such effort. And they taught me a great deal about false persuasion. In order to deceive overwhelmingly, you’ve got to support your lies with something tangible.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Brush with Justice, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.5 inches in diameter

Framed: 2.375 inches in diameter

Sooner or later, we get caught lying. For most of us, it’s incredibly early in life, and the falsehood detected is innocuous. We’re scolded, briefly punished, and then allowed to go about our day. This happens with some regularity until our authorities trust in our awareness of morality.

It’s not always entirely clear whether or not a child has truly learned any distinction between right and wrong or whether they’ve just begun to understand the tolerance of certain authorities for lying. Maybe grandma and grandpa will let me get away with something mom and dad won’t. Very early, we learn to play to the crowd, to feel out an audience’s tolerance for bullshit and to stay just shy of that.

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ADAM MYSOCK

A Cautionary Tale, 2018

acrylic on panel

1.75h x 1.50w in
4.45h x 3.81w cm

Framed: 2.68h x 2.38w in
6.79h x 6.03w cm

Are there any more recognizable stories about the difficulties that can accompany lying than that of Pinocchio? For the puppet-turned-boy, lying is the root of all hardship. He’s dishonest so, his nose grows. Chaos ensues. It’s that simple.

As soon as we realize that our noses don’t grow like Pinocchio’s, we appreciate that our lies aren’t always detectable. We can get away with lying if it’s handled carefully. We just have to determine what variables to control in any particular scenario.And that is a powerful insight.

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ADAM MYSOCK

Our Legacy of Engagement, 2018

acrylic on panel

8h x 6.5w inches
framed 10h x 8.50w in

after: “La Lutte” by Émile Friant, 1889

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been particularly struck by the staggering number of unintended consequences political (and typically military) actions tend to have for decades after they’re made. You’d think that we’ve been a country long enough to recognize that our decisions matter now AND in the future. We have enough data, enough history, to evaluate the trends accurately. And we can observe other nations’ consequences from afar and take heed.

But that’s not the context in which we live.

Our political leadership seems to be required to function in the “now.” We make decisions with concern for their effect on tomorrow, not next year.

And yet, time, space, nature, any number of cosmic-scaled phenomena don’t care about our myopia. Time knows that our behavior has ramifications. Whether we’d like it to or not, the battles we wage now influence the relationships of members of the next generations.

For this piece, I’ve stacked two boys wrestling in Émile Friant’s La Lutte into a diminishing pyramid. Early foundational actions are repeated through future generations, with each new layer becoming less than its ancestors simply because it continues a struggle without pause. The smaller figures simply imitate the maneuvers of their supporting predecessors, never looking upward or outward.

Decisions made by the base reduce the substance of the highest members of the lineage.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been particularly struck by the staggering number of unintended consequences political (and typically military) actions tend to have for decades after they’re made. You’d think that we’ve been a country long enough to recognize that our decisions matter now AND in the future. We have enough data, enough history, to evaluate the trends accurately. And we can observe other nations’ consequences from afar and take heed.

But that’s not the context in which we live.

Our political leadership seems to be required to function in the “now.” We make decisions with concern for their effect on tomorrow, not next year.

And yet, time, space, nature, any number of cosmic-scaled phenomena don’t care about our myopia. Time knows that our behavior has ramifications. Whether we’d like it to or not, the battles we wage now influence the relationships of members of the next generations.

For this piece, I’ve stacked two boys wrestling in Émile Friant’s La Lutte into a diminishing pyramid. Early foundational actions are repeated through future generations, with each new layer becoming less than its ancestors simply because it continues a struggle without pause. The smaller figures simply imitate the maneuvers of their supporting predecessors, never looking upward or outward.

Decisions made by the base reduce the substance of the highest members of the lineage.

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ADAM MYSOCK
I Saw a Headline Once, 2017
acrylic on panel
8h x 6.5w inches
framed 10h x 8.50w in

after: "The Gossips" by Norman Rockwell, 1948

It seems like we’re invited to contemplate the nature of our political climate every time we turn on the television or go online. I spend hours wondering how our discourse become so contentious. So divisive. So maddening.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we’ve gradually started speaking in social monologues, in isolated, cyclical rants. We seemed to have lost all sense of dialogue and discussion. We’ve become disinterested in our audience’s feedback and certainly their diversity.

We talk continuously to those already in agreement with us, and we don’t want to pause long enough for anyone else to reply.

In this piece, I’ve taken the most iconic image of American circular communication – Norman Rockwell’s The Gossips – and re-presented a selected segment of it as though it were the pages of a flipbook flashing past our eyes. Within the selection, we’re offered a very homogenous group of characters. These individuals converse amongst themselves without variation from one page to the next. Essentially, these folks are constantly saying the same things to the same people.

On the left, I’ve rendered the imagery with a reddish hue. A nod to the red-shift phenomenon in astrophysics – where a celestial body moving away from our eyes appears to be a bit redder than it actually is, this page and its clarity of identity is moving away from us. As the imagery shifts right, it gradually becomes bluer, referencing the blue-shift phenomenon – where celestial bodies moving toward us appear bluish. These pages are quickly approaching our present. As they do, our ability to recognize identities becomes more and more challenging. We’re moving away from a clarified sense of who we are, toward a distorted future, simply because we only seem to be conversing with those who look and think the most like us.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Idle Hands, 2017
acrylic on panel
6.5h x 8w inches
framed 10h x 8.50w in

after: "And In His Eyes I Saw Death" by Ejnar Nielsen, 1897

Being discontented means being left with choices. We can either accept a current status quo or change our outlook, change our behavior, change something.

But there’s a split-second moment that happens right before a change takes place when everything is defined by its potential energy. Long suppressed stresses build and then - almost instantly – burst into action.

It’s difficult for me to think of our current socio-political moment as one of these points in time. We’ve lived through opposition parties being in control before, but it seems like the polarized rhetoric and extreme tests of morality and ethics are building into something that will drastically alter the character of our future. This is a moment we’ll look back to when we rehash how America become something unrecognizable to our current eyes.

For this piece, I used the folded hands of Neilsen’s sitter as an archetype of this potential energy. They’re available as a gesture of either acceptance or resistance; they can either maintain their position and exist harmlessly or they can quickly tighten into a fighting posture and become a threat.

The color temperature shifts from left to right, as passions increase. The majority of the panel remains too dark to discern. We’re left to focus on a single feature of these characters, contemplating what these hands will do next without guidance from context or expression. A bit like the duality of Schrodinger’s cat, these hands are both passive and threatening in the same moment. As are we.

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ADAM MYSOCK
The Earliest Portrait of Everything, 2017
acrylic on panel
2h x 5.75w inches
framed 4h x 7.75w in

after: the European Space Agency's Planck Observatory's imaging of Cosmic Microwave Background

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ADAM MYSOCK
An Attempt at Imperfect Optimism (No. 1), 2017
acrylic on panel
2h x 2.5w inches
framed 4h x 4.50w in

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ADAM MYSOCK
An Attempt at Imperfect Optimism (No. 2), 2017
acrylic on panel
2h x 2.5w inches
framed 4h x 4.50w in

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ADAM MYSOCK
An Attempt at Imperfect Optimism (No. 3), 2017
acrylic on panel
2h x 2.5w inches
framed 4h x 4.50w in

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ADAM MYSOCK
Red Sky in the Morning [Day One], 2017
acrylic on panel
2h x 2w inches
framed 3.50h x 3.50w in

after: "Twilight in the Wilderness" by Frederic Edwin Church, 1860

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ADAM MYSOCK
Red Sky in the Morning [Day Two], 2017
acrylic on panel
2h x 2w inches
framed 3.50h x 3.50w in

after: "Twilight in the Wilderness" by Frederic Edwin Church, 1860

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ADAM MYSOCK
Red Sky in the Morning [Day Three], 2017
acrylic on panel
2h x 2w inches
framed 3.50h x 3.50w in

after: "Twilight in the Wilderness" by Frederic Edwin Church, 1860

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ADAM MYSOCK
Red Sky in the Morning [Day Four], 2017
acrylic on panel
2h x 2w inches
framed 3.50h x 3.50w in

after: "Twilight in the Wilderness" by Frederic Edwin Church, 1860

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ADAM MYSOCK

Sufficiently Excited by Distant Events (No. 1), 2017

acrylic on panel

2h x 1.75w in
framed 3.50h x 3.50w in

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ADAM MYSOCK

Sufficiently Excited by Distant Events (No. 2), 2017

acrylic on panel

2h x 1.75w inches

framed 3.50h x 3.50w in

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ADAM MYSOCK

Sufficiently Excited by Distant Events (No. 3), 2017

Acrylic on panel

2h x 1.75w in
framed 3.50h x 3.50w in

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ADAM MYSOCK

Sufficiently Excited by Distant Events (No. 4), 2017

acrylic on panel

2h x 1.75w in
framed 3.50h x 3.50w in

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ADAM MYSOCK

Sufficiently Excited by Distant Events (No. 5), 2017

acrylic on panel

2h x 1.75w in
framed 3.50h x 3.50w in

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ADAM MYSOCK
Real and Imagined, 2016
acrylic on panel
6.75h x 12w inches
framed 9h x 14w in

after: "The Blind Leading the Blind" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1568),
Akseli Gallen-Kallela's Building (1903), and #17 "Beast and the Beauty" from Wally Wood's,
Bob Powell's, and Norm Saunders' "Mars Attacks" trading cards (1962)

Early in the Republican primaries, Donald Trump claimed that Mexican immigrants were bringing with them nothing more than drugs, crime, and rape. I was stunned at his willingness to demonize a whole group in such awful terms. It seems odd, but in 33 years I struggle to recall any other incident when somebody with so much wealth (and therefore power) had publicly denounced an entire branch of our population, especially a group of people who—arguably— face some of the greatest challenges when trying to prosper in our country.

I was taken aback at this strange slight-of-hand I was witnessing. Here was an individual who threatened to dismantle the progress our country has made over the last 50 years via his racist rants, trying to turn our ire toward a hugely innocent scape-goat. It was as if I was watching a bad magician trying to pull his audience’s eyes and fear toward a pocketknife he held in one hand while shooting a child with the automatic weapon he held in his other.

In this piece, I’ve inserted a Martian into the procession of blind men and spot lit his potentially ominous presence. Meanwhile, off to the right, a man with an ax is attacking the head of the parade. While we focus our eyes and anxieties on the easier visual target, we ignore the more immediate and lethal threat we’re blindly moving toward.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Foreseeing Nothing, 2016
acrylic on panel
6.5h x 8w inches
framed 8.50h x 10w in

after: "Henry Fawcett; Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett" by Ford Made Brown, 1872

On November 7th, 2016, it seemed as if everyone knew how the U.S. presidential election would conclude, particularly our major media outlets. On the morning of November 9th, 2016, it was clear that no one had known what they had been talking about.

We’d spent so much time living in a world defined by largely reliable focus groups, polls, and surveys that we’d become convinced that we could idly predict the future. Our news sources became complacent in their analysis of human behavior, and we followed along. It became the blind leading the blind.

But what truly struck me was that we seemed surprised to discover our inability to foresee the future, to discover that we aren’t omniscient.

Here—in the tradition of other paintings depicting the parable of the blind leading the blind—I’ve presented a row of men pointing us in a specific direction. An isolated portrait of blind, British academic, economist, and statesman Sir Henry Fawcett is repeated four times* as a visualization of our election’s timeline. For the majority of the painting (which was completed before the election), Fawcett (who became a noted social and political leader in England during the reign of Queen Victoria despite his disability) is seen pointing us toward his left. However, just before the work’s conclusion (the rightmost quarter, completed after the election), he turns and abruptly shoves the viewer’s gaze to his right.

Just as so many news outlets encouraged our attention (and hope) to the Left, Democratic candidate for a majority of the general election, after November 8th—we were all forced to attend to an unanticipated Right.

*The presence of four repetitions is a nod to the four-year term of the presidency.

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ADAM MYSOCK
If He Wasn't Handsome, Would He Still be Super?, 2016
acrylic on panel
7h x 8w inches
framed 9h x 10w in

after: Joseph Shuster's "Superman" #1 Cover (1939) and
#17 "Beast and Beauty" from Wally Wood's, Bob Powell's,
and Norm Saunders' "Mars Attacks" trading cards (1962)

Our aliens are almost always the enemy. Maybe it’s a ploy by conspiracy theorists to unify humanity against a common enemy. But there are exceptions. Like Superman. His whole narrative hinges on his being born on another planet.

It begs consideration about what’s different with Superman; what makes this alien an ally rather than an opponent? For me, the easiest, or most superficial, answer has to be that he’s handsome. And white.

"If He Wasn't Handsome, Would He Still Be Super?" encourages a viewer to consider how heroic Superman’s selfless actions would be if he were depicted more like the alien monsters that populate our movies and televisions. How much does external appearance influence our impression of an alien’s social value?

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ADAM MYSOCK
Where the Snow in Snow Globes Came From, 2016
acrylic on panel
3.8h x 5.7w inches
framed 6h x 7.80w in

after: "View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow" by Thomas Cole, 1836

Looking back at the work of Thomas Cole and his contemporaries, it’s believable that the landscape was once something to be valued simply for being awe inspiring.

Today, it increasingly seems like nature – as a pure, experiential concept – cannot exist. It’s not profitable if left untouched. Because we can always reap something from a raw landscape, it must be sold off in pieces to anyone with enough wealth. It’s that simple. Regardless of how absurd or damaging the plunder.

In a futile attempt to preserve Cole’s Oxbow from such prospectors, I’ve offered it a cover of sorts. If this area can be seen as an already-tapped resource, can become the source of the world’s snow globe snow, then perhaps speculators will move on. Perhaps those that mean the landscape harm for personal profit might leave it be if they can believe that someone else has already plundered it.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Better Alone Than in Bad Company, 2016
acrylic on panel
6.75h x 6.75w inches
framed 9h x 9w in

after: Joseph Shuster's "Action Comics" #1 Cover (1938) and
#19 "Burning Flesh" from Wally Wood's, Bob Powell's,
and Norm Saunders' "Mars Attacks" trading cards (1962)

Our aliens are almost always the enemy. Maybe it’s a ploy by conspiracy theorists to unify humanity against a common enemy. But there are exceptions. Like Superman. His whole narrative hinges on his being born on another planet.

It begs consideration about what’s different with Superman; what makes this alien an ally rather than an opponent? For me, the easiest, or most superficial, answer has to be that he’s handsome. And white.

"If He Wasn't Handsome, Would He Still Be Super" encourages a viewer to consider how heroic Superman’s selfless actions would be if he were depicted more like the alien monsters that populate our movies and televisions. How much does external appearance influence our impression of an alien’s social value?

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ADAM MYSOCK
What's Left, 2015
acrylic on panel
5.5h x 8w inches
framed 9h x 11.50w in

after: John James Audubon's print of the Florida Cormorant

With minimal effort, it’s easy to find a great deal of research about how ecosystems and habitats are being dramatically altered by climate change. Some organisms adapt to the new conditions. Others die off. Still others find themselves migrating to unfamiliar homes.

As we destroy more natural resources, we modify environmental rhythms and behaviors that have evolved over centuries.

In thinking satirically about global warming, one of the greatest prospects seemed to rely on this loss of habitable land. As humans pollute, cover, or flood the surface of the earth, the terrain available for other animals to occupy becomes increasingly scarce. Organisms meant to inhabit wildly diverse niches will be forced to share incorrect spaces if they want to survive. John James Audubon’s The Birds of America will be required to become "The Birds of Wherever is Vacant".

Essentially, by destroying tolerable habitat and forcing animals to congregate on what land we don’t use, we’ll create incidental zoos. And who doesn’t enjoy a good zoo?

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ADAM MYSOCK
In Search of What Once Was, 2014
acrylic on panel
5h x 12w inches
framed 7h x 14w in

after: "The Desert at Assouan, Egypt" by Sanford Gifford (1869)
and "Procession in the Province of Kursk" by Ilya Repin (1881-1883)

I began this piece with the intent to portray a might-be tourism of the future. While many of the earlier works focused on the transformation of ice into water, I recognize that global warming might also shift climate patterns in various locations to increase the likelihood of droughts. Once plentiful water may become a thing of the past, spoken of only by the oldest inhabitants of such regions. People may begin offering tours to history buffs, taking groups on expeditions to places where water used to be.

While the painting began with the same focus on satire that characterizes earlier works, the visual tone never really approached a level of comedy. Instead, the figures slowly became surrogates for Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quixote and Sancho Panza characters. The taller figure, Quixote, leads his squire across a fairly desolate landscape in an illogical effort to relive something impossibly lost (here, the fundamental water). While the upper figure points down to the puddle with his staff, his sidekick looks out, struggling to see his knight’s vision.

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ADAM MYSOCK
The Consequences of Empty Threats, 2014
acrylic on panel
9h x 11.25w inches
Framed 11h x 13.25w in

after: "The Iceberg" by Friedrich Edwin Church (1875)
and "The Archers" by Henry Raeburn (1789-1790)

While considering our great power over, and responsibility to, the environment in the previous painting, I found myself contemplating nature’s ability to humble humankind, to keep us from believing that we have an ultimate authority. Without effort, the environment has a way of reminding us that it was here before us and it’ll be here after. While it may be less than desirable, the climatic results of our misuse of natural resources will do a brilliant job of cutting humanity down to size for decades to come. Like the sublime scale of Church’s iceberg, we will always be reminded how tiny we truly are – and what’s better for us than that?

Within The Consequences of Empty Threats, a young man is highlighted as he pulls back his bowstring and takes aim in the direction of the distant iceberg. As he stands, the arrow’s path will carry it parallel to the icy façade; he poses no threat to the frozen mass. However, as he performs this futile act, he finds himself (and his weapon) partially submerged in the ocean created by the iceberg’s meltwater. After firing the arrow, he’ll have no choice but to appreciate the predicament of his position.

Again, the warming spotlight draws attention to the important characters – one low, small, and ineffectual, the other tall, central, and controlling.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Waiting for the Pool to Open, 2014
acrylic on panel
9h x 12w inches
framed 11h x 13.75w in

after: "Scene in the Arctic" by William Bradford (c. 1880) and
"Boys Bathing at Skagen, Summer Evening" by Peder Severin Kroyer (1899)

Living in a house which sits about 5 feet below sea level, I find myself thinking about rising sea levels a lot. There’s a great possibility that the home where my wife and I have begun our family will be underwater centuries from now. Conversely, swimming has always been a passion of mine – my wife and I even met on a swim team early in our teenage years. In trying to find the silver lining to global warming drowning our home, I can look for solace in the fact that there’ll be more places to go swimming when the seas overtake our coastal areas.

There’s an innocence in Kroyer’s boys – and the concept of children swimming in the nude – that seemed to parallel the simplicity of my revelation of an increased number of swimming areas in our future. The children don’t worry about what was once here. They just enjoy what is. Nothing is immediately threating or threatened. It’s an ideally false stasis.

Somewhere between the patient child and the lumbering ice on the horizon falls the bright emphasis of the painting. When global warming takes this area over, he’ll be ready to be the first one in the water.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun (Last Judgment) [detail], 2014
acrylic on panel, mounted on a J.P. Sauer Sohn shotgun
12.5 x 47 x 21 inches

after: Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" Tritych (c. late 1460's),
Bambi's mother from Disney's "Bambi" (1942)

Anytime a gun is fired, a last judgment is generated; a shooter is making an
irreversible assessment about their target’s worth and virtue.
Anyone pulling a trigger assumes the God-like responsibility of ruling over another entity’s fate.
Unfortunately, too often that actuality is far more apparent to the target than it is to the marksman.
For this piece, I’m offering viewers the chance to voluntarily put themselves in the position of
target in order to observe the last judgments inherent within a firearm.
Looking down the left barrel of the gun, one can see the good rising to enter the Gates of Heaven.
Looking down the right, the evil being cast into Hell.
Through the lower channel, the viewer is supplied with a visual reminder of my earliest awareness
of a gun’s finality – a vision of Bambi’s mother just before she’s shot.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun (Last Judgment) [detail], 2014
acrylic on panel, mounted on a J.P. Sauer Sohn shotgun
12.5 x 47 x 21 inches

after: Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" Tritych (c. late 1460's),
Bambi's mother from Disney's "Bambi" (1942)

Anytime a gun is fired, a last judgment is generated; a shooter is making an
irreversible assessment about their target’s worth and virtue.
Anyone pulling a trigger assumes the God-like responsibility of ruling over another entity’s fate.
Unfortunately, too often that actuality is far more apparent to the target than it is to the marksman.
For this piece, I’m offering viewers the chance to voluntarily put themselves in the position of
target in order to observe the last judgments inherent within a firearm.
Looking down the left barrel of the gun, one can see the good rising to enter the Gates of Heaven.
Looking down the right, the evil being cast into Hell.
Through the lower channel, the viewer is supplied with a visual reminder of my earliest awareness
of a gun’s finality – a vision of Bambi’s mother just before she’s shot.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun (Last Judgment) [detail], 2014
acrylic on panel, mounted on a J.P. Sauer Sohn shotgun
12.5 x 47 x 21 inches

after: Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" Tritych (c. late 1460's),
Bambi's mother from Disney's "Bambi" (1942)

Anytime a gun is fired, a last judgment is generated; a shooter is making an
irreversible assessment about their target’s worth and virtue.
Anyone pulling a trigger assumes the God-like responsibility of ruling over another entity’s fate.
Unfortunately, too often that actuality is far more apparent to the target than it is to the marksman.
For this piece, I’m offering viewers the chance to voluntarily put themselves in the position of
target in order to observe the last judgments inherent within a firearm.
Looking down the left barrel of the gun, one can see the good rising to enter the Gates of Heaven.
Looking down the right, the evil being cast into Hell.
Through the lower channel, the viewer is supplied with a visual reminder of my earliest awareness
of a gun’s finality – a vision of Bambi’s mother just before she’s shot.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun (Last Judgment) [detail], 2014
acrylic on panel, mounted on a J.P. Sauer Sohn shotgun
12.5 x 47 x 21 inches

after: Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" Tritych (c. late 1460's),
Bambi's mother from Disney's "Bambi" (1942)

Anytime a gun is fired, a last judgment is generated; a shooter is making an
irreversible assessment about their target’s worth and virtue.
Anyone pulling a trigger assumes the God-like responsibility of ruling over another entity’s fate.
Unfortunately, too often that actuality is far more apparent to the target than it is to the marksman.
For this piece, I’m offering viewers the chance to voluntarily put themselves in the position of
target in order to observe the last judgments inherent within a firearm.
Looking down the left barrel of the gun, one can see the good rising to enter the Gates of Heaven.
Looking down the right, the evil being cast into Hell.
Through the lower channel, the viewer is supplied with a visual reminder of my earliest awareness
of a gun’s finality – a vision of Bambi’s mother just before she’s shot.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun (Last Judgment) [detail], 2014
acrylic on panel, mounted on a J.P. Sauer Sohn shotgun
12.5 x 47 x 21 inches

after: Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" Tritych (c. late 1460's),
Bambi's mother from Disney's "Bambi" (1942)

Anytime a gun is fired, a last judgment is generated; a shooter is making an
irreversible assessment about their target’s worth and virtue.
Anyone pulling a trigger assumes the God-like responsibility of ruling over another entity’s fate.
Unfortunately, too often that actuality is far more apparent to the target than it is to the marksman.
For this piece, I’m offering viewers the chance to voluntarily put themselves in the position of
target in order to observe the last judgments inherent within a firearm.
Looking down the left barrel of the gun, one can see the good rising to enter the Gates of Heaven.
Looking down the right, the evil being cast into Hell.
Through the lower channel, the viewer is supplied with a visual reminder of my earliest awareness
of a gun’s finality – a vision of Bambi’s mother just before she’s shot.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun (Last Judgment) [detail], 2014
acrylic on panel, mounted on a J.P. Sauer Sohn shotgun
12.5 x 47 x 21 inches

after: Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" Tritych (c. late 1460's),
Bambi's mother from Disney's "Bambi" (1942)

Anytime a gun is fired, a last judgment is generated; a shooter is making an
irreversible assessment about their target’s worth and virtue.
Anyone pulling a trigger assumes the God-like responsibility of ruling over another entity’s fate.
Unfortunately, too often that actuality is far more apparent to the target than it is to the marksman.
For this piece, I’m offering viewers the chance to voluntarily put themselves in the position of
target in order to observe the last judgments inherent within a firearm.
Looking down the left barrel of the gun, one can see the good rising to enter the Gates of Heaven.
Looking down the right, the evil being cast into Hell.
Through the lower channel, the viewer is supplied with a visual reminder of my earliest awareness
of a gun’s finality – a vision of Bambi’s mother just before she’s shot.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth [detail], 2014
acrylic on copper, mounted in wall
14 x 39 inches

Late last year, a local news station was reporting on the shooting death of a 7-month old child.
As part of their reporting, the anchor described that – since 2010 –
6 children had been “gunned-down” in New Orleans.
I recognized some of the murder scenes she mentioned as locations within the Central City neighborhood,
where I had witnessed the murder of an unarmed 16 year old a decade ago.
It turns out that four of those six children were killed in, or near, Central City –
within the city’s Sixth Police District.
In fact, one child had been gunned-down per year starting in 2010. Looking into the statistics further,
I discovered that I had to go back to 1994 – one of the most violent years in our city’s history – to even find
another child who had been killed as the result of gunfire. The 16-year lull seemed huge compared to the
short regularity with which kids are being killed now.
In order to draw attention to the children and the frightening timeline of their murders, I’ll be creating bullet holes
in the gallery wall at measured intervals to serve as a timeline of sorts.
A portrait will be inserted in each as a reminder of a bullet holes’ effects – the last six children,
under six years old, killed in New Orleans’ Sixth Police District.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth [detail], 2014
acrylic on copper, mounted in wall
14 x 39 inches

Late last year, a local news station was reporting on the shooting death of a 7-month old child.
As part of their reporting, the anchor described that – since 2010 –
6 children had been “gunned-down” in New Orleans.
I recognized some of the murder scenes she mentioned as locations within the Central City neighborhood,
where I had witnessed the murder of an unarmed 16 year old a decade ago.
It turns out that four of those six children were killed in, or near, Central City –
within the city’s Sixth Police District.
In fact, one child had been gunned-down per year starting in 2010. Looking into the statistics further,
I discovered that I had to go back to 1994 – one of the most violent years in our city’s history – to even find
another child who had been killed as the result of gunfire. The 16-year lull seemed huge compared to the
short regularity with which kids are being killed now.
In order to draw attention to the children and the frightening timeline of their murders, I’ll be creating bullet holes
in the gallery wall at measured intervals to serve as a timeline of sorts.
A portrait will be inserted in each as a reminder of a bullet holes’ effects – the last six children,
under six years old, killed in New Orleans’ Sixth Police District.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth, 2014
acrylic on copper, mounted in wall
14 x 39 inches

Late last year, a local news station was reporting on the shooting death of a 7-month old child.
As part of their reporting, the anchor described that – since 2010 –
6 children had been “gunned-down” in New Orleans.
I recognized some of the murder scenes she mentioned as locations within the Central City neighborhood,
where I had witnessed the murder of an unarmed 16 year old a decade ago.
It turns out that four of those six children were killed in, or near, Central City –
within the city’s Sixth Police District.
In fact, one child had been gunned-down per year starting in 2010. Looking into the statistics further,
I discovered that I had to go back to 1994 – one of the most violent years in our city’s history – to even find
another child who had been killed as the result of gunfire. The 16-year lull seemed huge compared to the
short regularity with which kids are being killed now.
In order to draw attention to the children and the frightening timeline of their murders, I’ll be creating bullet holes
in the gallery wall at measured intervals to serve as a timeline of sorts.
A portrait will be inserted in each as a reminder of a bullet holes’ effects – the last six children,
under six years old, killed in New Orleans’ Sixth Police District.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth [detail], 2014
acrylic on copper, mounted in wall
14 x 39 inches

Late last year, a local news station was reporting on the shooting death of a 7-month old child.
As part of their reporting, the anchor described that – since 2010 –
6 children had been “gunned-down” in New Orleans.
I recognized some of the murder scenes she mentioned as locations within the Central City neighborhood,
where I had witnessed the murder of an unarmed 16 year old a decade ago.
It turns out that four of those six children were killed in, or near, Central City –
within the city’s Sixth Police District.
In fact, one child had been gunned-down per year starting in 2010. Looking into the statistics further,
I discovered that I had to go back to 1994 – one of the most violent years in our city’s history – to even find
another child who had been killed as the result of gunfire. The 16-year lull seemed huge compared to the
short regularity with which kids are being killed now.
In order to draw attention to the children and the frightening timeline of their murders, I’ll be creating bullet holes
in the gallery wall at measured intervals to serve as a timeline of sorts.
A portrait will be inserted in each as a reminder of a bullet holes’ effects – the last six children,
under six years old, killed in New Orleans’ Sixth Police District.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth [detail], 2014
acrylic on copper, mounted in wall
14 x 39 inches

Late last year, a local news station was reporting on the shooting death of a 7-month old child.
As part of their reporting, the anchor described that – since 2010 –
6 children had been “gunned-down” in New Orleans.
I recognized some of the murder scenes she mentioned as locations within the Central City neighborhood,
where I had witnessed the murder of an unarmed 16 year old a decade ago.
It turns out that four of those six children were killed in, or near, Central City –
within the city’s Sixth Police District.
In fact, one child had been gunned-down per year starting in 2010. Looking into the statistics further,
I discovered that I had to go back to 1994 – one of the most violent years in our city’s history – to even find
another child who had been killed as the result of gunfire. The 16-year lull seemed huge compared to the
short regularity with which kids are being killed now.
In order to draw attention to the children and the frightening timeline of their murders, I’ll be creating bullet holes
in the gallery wall at measured intervals to serve as a timeline of sorts.
A portrait will be inserted in each as a reminder of a bullet holes’ effects – the last six children,
under six years old, killed in New Orleans’ Sixth Police District.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth [detail], 2014
acrylic on copper, mounted in wall
14 x 39 inches

Late last year, a local news station was reporting on the shooting death of a 7-month old child.
As part of their reporting, the anchor described that – since 2010 –
6 children had been “gunned-down” in New Orleans.
I recognized some of the murder scenes she mentioned as locations within the Central City neighborhood,
where I had witnessed the murder of an unarmed 16 year old a decade ago.
It turns out that four of those six children were killed in, or near, Central City –
within the city’s Sixth Police District.
In fact, one child had been gunned-down per year starting in 2010. Looking into the statistics further,
I discovered that I had to go back to 1994 – one of the most violent years in our city’s history – to even find
another child who had been killed as the result of gunfire. The 16-year lull seemed huge compared to the
short regularity with which kids are being killed now.
In order to draw attention to the children and the frightening timeline of their murders, I’ll be creating bullet holes
in the gallery wall at measured intervals to serve as a timeline of sorts.
A portrait will be inserted in each as a reminder of a bullet holes’ effects – the last six children,
under six years old, killed in New Orleans’ Sixth Police District.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth [detail], 2014
acrylic on copper, mounted in wall
14 x 39 inches

Late last year, a local news station was reporting on the shooting death of a 7-month old child.
As part of their reporting, the anchor described that – since 2010 –
6 children had been “gunned-down” in New Orleans.
I recognized some of the murder scenes she mentioned as locations within the Central City neighborhood,
where I had witnessed the murder of an unarmed 16 year old a decade ago.
It turns out that four of those six children were killed in, or near, Central City –
within the city’s Sixth Police District.
In fact, one child had been gunned-down per year starting in 2010. Looking into the statistics further,
I discovered that I had to go back to 1994 – one of the most violent years in our city’s history – to even find
another child who had been killed as the result of gunfire. The 16-year lull seemed huge compared to the
short regularity with which kids are being killed now.
In order to draw attention to the children and the frightening timeline of their murders, I’ll be creating bullet holes
in the gallery wall at measured intervals to serve as a timeline of sorts.
A portrait will be inserted in each as a reminder of a bullet holes’ effects – the last six children,
under six years old, killed in New Orleans’ Sixth Police District.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth [detail], 2014
acrylic on copper, mounted in wall
14 x 39 inches

Late last year, a local news station was reporting on the shooting death of a 7-month old child.
As part of their reporting, the anchor described that – since 2010 –
6 children had been “gunned-down” in New Orleans.
I recognized some of the murder scenes she mentioned as locations within the Central City neighborhood,
where I had witnessed the murder of an unarmed 16 year old a decade ago.
It turns out that four of those six children were killed in, or near, Central City –
within the city’s Sixth Police District.
In fact, one child had been gunned-down per year starting in 2010. Looking into the statistics further,
I discovered that I had to go back to 1994 – one of the most violent years in our city’s history – to even find
another child who had been killed as the result of gunfire. The 16-year lull seemed huge compared to the
short regularity with which kids are being killed now.
In order to draw attention to the children and the frightening timeline of their murders, I’ll be creating bullet holes
in the gallery wall at measured intervals to serve as a timeline of sorts.
A portrait will be inserted in each as a reminder of a bullet holes’ effects – the last six children,
under six years old, killed in New Orleans’ Sixth Police District.

Inquire

ADAM MYSOCK
The Last Six, Under Six, Murdered by a Gun in the Sixth [detail], 2014
acrylic on copper, mounted in wall
14 x 39 inches

Late last year, a local news station was reporting on the shooting death of a 7-month old child.
As part of their reporting, the anchor described that – since 2010 –
6 children had been “gunned-down” in New Orleans.
I recognized some of the murder scenes she mentioned as locations within the Central City neighborhood,
where I had witnessed the murder of an unarmed 16 year old a decade ago.
It turns out that four of those six children were killed in, or near, Central City –
within the city’s Sixth Police District.
In fact, one child had been gunned-down per year starting in 2010. Looking into the statistics further,
I discovered that I had to go back to 1994 – one of the most violent years in our city’s history – to even find
another child who had been killed as the result of gunfire. The 16-year lull seemed huge compared to the
short regularity with which kids are being killed now.
In order to draw attention to the children and the frightening timeline of their murders, I’ll be creating bullet holes
in the gallery wall at measured intervals to serve as a timeline of sorts.
A portrait will be inserted in each as a reminder of a bullet holes’ effects – the last six children,
under six years old, killed in New Orleans’ Sixth Police District.

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ADAM MYSOCK
What Your Children Will Look Like According to Gordon Moore, 2014
acrylic on panel
1h x .75w inches
framed 10h x 8.50w in

after: Charles Hayter's Miniature Portrait of Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois (after Beechy) (1811)
and an illustration by Ed Valigursky

In the late 1960s Intel cofounder Gordon Moore predicted that integrated circuits would get
twice as fast and be halved in size every 18 months. This affects the processors and memory
in our computers and even the number of pixels in our digital cameras. Moreover, it’s held true
for over 50 years now. Moore’s Law has played arguably the greatest role in determining the
pace of technological advancement of our era. But as a small-scale painter, I’m uniquely aware
of an opposing custom in painting. Essentially painting has long held a bigger-is-better mentality,
and throughout its history has rarely ventured toward the miniature. In the final piece in the suite,
I wanted to explore what my work would look like if it had gotten exponentially smaller over the
four-month span during which I’ve been painting Valigursky’s robot. Beginning with the six-inch
width maintained throughout the rest of the series, I divided the dimensions by two three times
(the first month would have been marked by six inch wide pieces, the second month by three inch
pieces, the third by inch and a half pieces, and finally by three-quarter inch pieces in the final month).
The result is simultaneously absurd and devotional.

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ADAM MYSOCK
What Your Children Will Look Like According to Gordon Moore [detail], 2014
acrylic on panel
1h x .75w inches
framed 10h x 8.50w in

after: Charles Hayter's Miniature Portrait of Sir Peter Francis Bourgeois (after Beechy) (1811)
and an illustration by Ed Valigursky

In the late 1960s Intel cofounder Gordon Moore predicted that integrated circuits would get
twice as fast and be halved in size every 18 months. This affects the processors and memory
in our computers and even the number of pixels in our digital cameras. Moreover, it’s held true
for over 50 years now. Moore’s Law has played arguably the greatest role in determining the
pace of technological advancement of our era. But as a small-scale painter, I’m uniquely aware
of an opposing custom in painting. Essentially painting has long held a bigger-is-better mentality,
and throughout its history has rarely ventured toward the miniature. In the final piece in the suite,
I wanted to explore what my work would look like if it had gotten exponentially smaller over the
four-month span during which I’ve been painting Valigursky’s robot. Beginning with the six-inch
width maintained throughout the rest of the series, I divided the dimensions by two three times
(the first month would have been marked by six inch wide pieces, the second month by three inch
pieces, the third by inch and a half pieces, and finally by three-quarter inch pieces in the final month).
The result is simultaneously absurd and devotional.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Having Found the Lowest Threshold (St. George Slaying the Dragon), 2013
acrylic on panel
6h x 7w inches
Framed 8.50h x 9.50w in

after: Nicolas Poussin's Massacre of the Innocents (1629)

In the summer of 2013, the murder of Trayvon Martin dominated weeks of news cycles.
As if we needed more of such news, the city of New Orleans had its own slate of what I
referred to as “murdered minors.” The whole phenomenon reminded me of the biblical
Massacre of the Innocents, the story in which Herod orders the execution of all young
males in Bethlehem to avoid the loss of his throne to a newborn king. I began questioning
what justification could possibly defend these modern slayings, and it quickly dawned on
me that it never seemed to take much for the killers to justify their actions.
Sometimes it was a simple as the victim wearing the wrong kind of clothing.
Nicolas Poussin’s The Massacre of the Innocents has always been my favorite depiction of
the aforementioned biblical tale, but much like the killing of youths that seemed to characterize
that summer, it had never been a settled image for me. I decided to experiment with it,
to see what changes I had to compel in order for the actions depicted to feel reasonable.
Having Found the Lowest Threshold (St. George Slaying the Dragon) was the result.
The women and children had to be from another world—they had to be aggressive—
in order for the soldier’s actions to feel “okay.” Sadly, those two criteria could be met simply
by giving them another skin color and a different vision than the one holding the weapon.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Backward, 2013
acrylic on panel
7.5 x 7.5 inches

In the 1940s and 50s, we didn’t have the necessary technology to see what the
surface of Mars really looked like. But we did have artists like Chesley Bonestell,
an American painter, designer and illustrator whose work heavily inspired the
development of the American space program. Through their images, Bonestell and
his peers gave our collective imagination the fuel it needed to give form to conceptualized realities.
To put it another way, we desired what we could only see as glowing spheres on a clear night
and the illustrations of science fiction gave those ambiguous objects of desire a near-tangible form.
To that end, I created the first of four paintings in which I’ve taken a Bonestell illustration,
preserved a circle of the image’s original color and darkened the remainder. Viewed from a distance,
the darkened field becomes a night sky and the preserved disk becomes a faraway,
glowing moon or planet. The dimmed scenery reveals itself only when we’re willing,
and brave enough, to travel nearer to those distant heavens.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Inward, 2013
acrylic on panel
7.5 x 6.5 inches

This second Bonestell illustration affords me an opportunity to further describe
the mid-century works I’m appropriating. Each image was a visual description
of one stage of a round trip to Mars. Even before we had been to the moon,
artists were visually describing how we would travel to another planet!
Whereas the first image in this series offered me the chance to look backward
at how we had historically imaged the heavens, this second painting provided
an opportunity to look inward, to consider how precise, or believable, my own
visions could be. I chose an image with minute details and multiple figures in
order to challenge my ability to create a specific vision, even if it was based on a
preexisting conception. In Backward, the preserved circle had been purposefully
diminutive to indicate a recession into space. Here, in Inward, the circle is placed
centrally – at the core of the composition – to imply an interior, a nucleus.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Outward, 2013
acrylic on panel
7.5 x 7.5 inches

In Outward, I chose to return to the allure of the distant. I took a Bonestell
illustration with a great deal of grounded depth and cropped out the most
foregrounded aspects and figures to reveal only those features too far off to obtain.
The preserved color – the muted orange – is the warmest, most visually aggressive
hue and, therefore, advances out from its dim settings. Overall, I’m playing with two
visual sensations of “outward.” As we look at the representational setting, we look
outward at a depth of landscape. If we’re solely aware of the formal elements, however,
we’re confronted with a small orange dot that pulls outward away from the flat
surface of the panel. Although it’s not necessarily a feature unique to this reference
piece, I also enjoyed the arrow-like forms present in the ships and mountains
as markers of an outward sense of movement.

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ADAM MYSOCK
Forward, 2013
acrylic on panel
7.5 x 6.5 inches

With Forward, I wanted an image with the clearest spatial hierarchy –
back, middle, and front. I aspired to have the eye move steadily toward
the front of the image through the chain of man’s constructions, ending
at the preserved circle, which sits on the closest structure and is intended
to most evidently lie on the front, or top, of the two dimensional image.
In my research on Chesley Bonestell, I had also discovered that he has an
asteroid and crater on the surface of Mars named after him, and I thought the
rocky forms in the bottom of this piece paid homage to those facts nicely.
Some rocks remain as individual forms (symbols of his asteroid),
while the collective mass frames a bowl meant to stand in for his Martian crater.

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ADAM MYSOCK
So Close I Can Almost Touch It, 2013
acrylic on panel
5h x 7.75w inches
Framed: 7.50h x 10.50w in

As mentioned above, we have technology on Mars that serves as a comfortable
proxy for humans as we procrastinate our efforts to actually visit. And that
technology is amazing in its capabilities – we know more about the make-up of
Martian geology and climate than ever before. Through the data being sent
back to Earth we are closer to Mars than any other non-Earth planet.
But we’re not there. Just like Polyphemus, the Cyclops in The Odyssey, we have
limited vision of that over which we aim claim ownership, and our reliance on the
sense of sight alone can hardly provide an accurate understanding of reality.
This investigation into the faults of visual reality as the exclusive reality is commonplace
in my work, and I enjoy how well the tension that arises between the mountain’s horizon
and the Cyclops’s hand and foot ties this piece into my earlier investigations of truth and fiction.

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ADAM MYSOCK
And Abraham looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward
all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the
country went up as the smoke of the furnace, 2011
acrylic on panel
10h x 14w inches
Framed: 12h x 16w in

after: “Fifth Plague of Egypt” by J. M. W. Turner (1800) and “Mending the Net” by Thomas Eakins (1881)

In a rather straightforward way, there are three parallel stories of food scarcity presented here. The top half of the composition comes from J. M. W. Turner’s Fifth Plague of Egypt. The fifth plague was a disease on the cattle of the Egyptians. The lower half is a cropped section of Thomas Eakins Mending the Net, in which fishermen mend holes in their net. In both cases a staple of nutrition is absent. The third reference highlights a more contemporary (and trivial) understanding of food scarcity – the recurrent disappearance/reappearance of McDonald’s McRib. On the extreme left, Lincoln walks carrying a basket subtly suggesting his role as savior or provider in times of need.

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ADAM MYSOCK
And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, 2011
acrylic on panel
10h x 16.75w inches
Framed: 12h x 18.50w in

after: “Moses and the Burning Bush” by Sébastien Bourdon (1642-45) and “Evening at Medfield, Massachusetts” by George Inness (1875)

This image begins with two allusions to the divinity of nature. Most noticeably, the figure of Moses crouching in the foreground was taken from Sébastien Bourdon's Moses and the Burning Bush, an episode where God speaks to Moses through a plant. Serving as a stage for Moses, George Inness’s Evening at Medfield, Massachusetts, was supposedly a manifestation of the artist’s belief in the idea that nature was a direct link between the material world and the divine (a belief that resulted in a very particular “glow” from many of Inness’ paintings). In further considering the idea of divinity and nature, the tall tale of Johnny Appleseed came to mind (many versions of which reference Appleseed as a preacher as well as an obsessive, pot-wearing gardener). Because of the darkly silhouetted forms in Inness’ painting and Moses’ posture of covering his eyes, it made sense to conceal elements from a Highlights For Kids Hidden Pictures drawing featuring Johnny Appleseed throughout the composition.

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ADAM MYSOCK
And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him,
Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward,
and southward, and eastward, and westward, 2011
acrylic on panel
10h x 16w inches
Framed: 12h x 17.50w in

after: “In the Fields” by Eastman Johnson (1880) and “The Sacrifice of Moses” by Massimo Stanzione (1629)

This piece is about redirection. While inserting Lincoln into Eastman Johnson’s In the Fields, it became quite apparent that emulating Johnson’s paint handling would make it quite difficult to capture a likeness. I needed to clarify Lincoln’s face in order to give him an identity. To overcome the obvious stylistic discrepancies, bizarre elements of Massimo Stanzione’s The Sacrifice of Moses were inserted to pull attention right, most specifically the pointing Moses. Baseball player Pat Burrell (of the 2010 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants) stands in his appropriate position – left field – assisting in the redirection by pointing to the opposite side. As a baseball player, Burrell’s presence in the field is logical, even if his appearance is unexpected.

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ADAM MYSOCK
And lo, three men stood by Abraham: and when he saw [them], he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, 2011
acrylic on panel
5h x 6.2w inches
Framed: 6.90h x 8.10w in

after: “Punishment of Korah” by Domenico Beccafumi (1537) and “The Banjo Player” by William Sydney Mount (1855)

This image really began with my knowledge of the American artist of the source painting – William Sydney Mount. While Mount is acknowledged as one of the first painters to present African- Americans in a positive light, his beliefs about slavery were at odds with Abraham Lincoln’s. In response, he seems to have wrestled with the good and evil aspects of his beliefs. The imagery of Moses on his knees (from Domenico Beccafumi’s Punishment of Korah, Dathan and Abiram) comes from a similar narrative about a struggle between good and evil. In it, Moses’ divine connections were challenged by tribal leaders and as a result the earth split open and swallowed the malicious contenders, leaving only the good. William Sydney Mount’s painting of The Banjo Player serves as a stage that hints at both something positive (the musical reference) and something negative (figures emerging on their knees, as if being released from captivity.) The musical poster (from 1979) is intentionally playful to offset the otherwise tense environment and may reference Lincoln’s action here, a similarity between Moses’ bearded likeness and that of Charlie Daniels, or the connection between a “pure prairie” and the gathered hay in the background.

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ADAM MYSOCK
So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him;
and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five
years when he departed out of Haran, 2011
acrylic on panel
10h x 8.5w inches
Framed: 12h x 10.50w in

after: “Basket of Clams” by Winslow Homer (1873) and “Moses Striking the Rock” by Abraham Bloemaert

This piece began with two stories about striking a rock to get water – that of Moses from Exodus and that of the S.S. Minnow of Gilligan’s Island. In Exodus, Moses responds to the thirsty complaints of the wandering Israelites – he strikes a rock with his staff and water pours out (seen here in the background to the right from Abraham Bloemaert’s Moses Striking the Rock). In Gilligan’s Island, the S.S. Minnow strikes a rock and water pours in. In both, the rock/water combination serves as both reminder of death (dehydration or drowning) and the instrument for the affirmation of life. The main image for this piece, Winslow Homer’s Basket of Clams, offers another look at striking a hard surface in order to establish a relationship between life and death – the idea of tapping an opened clam on the shell to see if it will close (a sure sign it’s alive and edible).

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ADAM MYSOCK
Abraham Lincoln, Paul Bunyon, the Gold Rush of 1849
and a Man Who Doesn't Care, 2009
acrylic on panel
5.5h x 5.5w inches
framed 10h x 10w in

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ADAM MYSOCK
Adam's Fruit, 2009
acrylic on panel
13.5 x 16 inches

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ADAM MYSOCK
Franklin's Milk, Yogurt, and Cheese, 2009
acrylic on panel
13.5 x 16 inches

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ADAM MYSOCK
Jefferson's Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dried Beans, Eggs, and Nuts, 2009
acrylic on panel
13.5 x 16 inches

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ADAM MYSOCK
Madison's Fats, Oils, and Sweets, 2009
acrylic on panel
16 x 14 inches
Framed: 20h x 18w in

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ADAM MYSOCK
Washington's Bread, Cereal, Rice, and Pasta, 2009
acrylic on panel
13.5 x 16 inches

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ADAM MYSOCK
Black and White Westerns No. 1, 2009
graphite and acrylic on paper
14 x 11 inches

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ADAM MYSOCK
Cowboys Making Vowel Sounds - Ah, 2009
graphite and acrylic varnish on paper
6h x 4w inches
framed 10.5 x 8 in

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ADAM MYSOCK
Davie Crockett, Pecos Bill, the Bull Moose Party, and a
Man Walking into Frame, 2009
acrylic on panel
5.5 x 5.5 inches
framed: 10h x 10w in

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ADAM MYSOCK
George Washington, George Washington Carver, the Spruce Goose,
and a Victorious Tiger Woods, 2009
acrylic on panel
5.5h x 5.5w inches
Framed: 10h x 10w in

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