Nick Mittelstead is a Philadelphia-based artist working in mixed-media practices that focus on 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 is a member of Vox Populi in Philadelphia and has shown in the US and abroad, exhibiting work at Vox, SPRING/BREAK, and R Gallery. They were a recipient of a Cadogan Fellowship and have attended residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and Mudhouse.
Statement -
With a mixed-media practice, I use emerging discourses in mythology to explore the excesses of contemporary art and its effects on audience. Inspired by the relationships between ontology, materiality, and obsolescence, my work speculates on the consequences of aesthetics. Minimizing the artists’ hand in favor of appropriated media, amalgamation, and generative practices, my work asks viewers how and why contemporary myth-making might be aestheticized and deployed.