Nick Mittelstead is a Philadelphia based artist working in mixed-media practices that focus on the passage of time, death, and materiality. He received an MFA in Studio Art and an MA in History and Theory of Contemporary Art from The San Francisco Art Institute and a BS in Studio Art from Skidmore College. She has shown in the US and abroad, exhibiting work at SPRING/BREAK, Vox Populi, and R Gallery. They were a recipient of a Cadogan Fellowship and have attended the Vermont Studio Center and the Mudhouse Residency.
Artist Statement:
Nothing lasts forever, but maybe the impermanence of things is not fixed. Maybe rather than emerging into being and disappearing from history, all things can fade in and out of view, oscillating between being and not. My work seeks to express this oscillation and extend its possibility to viewers by reinvigorating historical practices, objects, and stories using new media and a material-based approach.
My work begins with materials treated with historical accuracy. I sculpt using raw medium, display videos on broadcast monitors, and record sounds on obsolete platforms. This materialistic fidelity to forgotten source material allows new media to gently swing the past towards the present. Raw material sculptures are re-rendered in 3D prints, AI generates video, and generative production drives recorded sounds. Mingling contemporary technology and historical material situates the old within the new and results in work that appears to emerge from the past, lives in the present, and teeters on the precipice of swinging back into obscurity. These works share a difficult truth, that we are here temporarily, but there is optimism in the possibility of returning.