Adrian Mosby

Demarco Mosby (b.1991) in Kansas City, Missouri, is a New York City based African-American oil painter. Growing up in a golden age of children’s Saturday morning cartoons, Demarco was inspired by animated classics such as “Batman: the Animated Series”, “Xiaolin Showdown” and “Teen Titans”. These long form narrative cartoons often had deep moral lessons and observations about human nature at their core- a theme that heavily influences Demarco’s art. He studied at the School of Visual Arts as a cartooning major in 2010 and graduated in 2014. Shortly after graduating SVA, Demarco became fascinated with oil paintings flexibility, depth and history. Becoming better educated on the stories and histories of classical religious painting, he saw another avenue to pursue his love of storytelling within painting. Starting in 2017, he became self-taught as an oil painter until feeling prepared to continue his art education. He attended the Hunter MFA program in 2019, graduating from Hunter in 2021. Taking from his roots in storytelling, he paints narrative-based works with heavy use of symbolic vocabulary, often making works that evoke deep and complex human feelings as well as drawing inspiration from artistic favorites such as Francisco Goya, to illustrate seemingly endless cyclical human tragedies. Demarco has since been a part of numerous group and solo exhibitions across the world in places such as Hong Kong, Italy, Montreal, Los Angeles, and New York.

Hi Demarco, tell us about your background. How and when did you first start to paint?

I started painting in 2018, I was working at a Micheal’s at the time and picked up some cheap small canvas boards and got to work practicing. It took a lot of time and patience to get comfortable with.

How do you begin to work? What is your process like?

My process tends to go one of two ways, I have an idea, I sketch it out, then translate the sketch to the canvas and build off that skeleton. Other times I have no idea what to do and to avoid staring at the blank canvas, I simply start making moves. I apply paint to canvas, any color and mark - I just free draw and when I don't like it- i wipe it down with a gamsol soaked rag and draw again. I repeat until I start to

almost see the painting in all the old marks like a Rorschach.

How did growing up watching Saturday morning cartoons like “Batman: the Animated Series,” “Xiaolin Showdown,” and “Teen Titans” shape your early interest in art and storytelling?

As a kid, I spent a lot of time alone wandering in the yard or the park and daydreaming. Saturday morning cartoons gave me a lot of inspiration and I’d day dream of those characters in different scenarios, or myself in their world. I started making my own stories and stick figure comic books in my free time and just became immersed in the freedom of storytelling.

Can you elaborate on the deep moral lessons and observations about human nature you found in these cartoons and how they influence your work today?

In a lot of those shows the leader character will go on an arc where he becomes obsessed with his objective to the detriment of his relationship to his friends and his own identity. For example Robin from Teen titans is so obsessed with defeating his arch rival Slade- that he joins forces with him (against his own friends) just to get closer to his goal of besting him. It’s a classic arc where the hero has to go to the very edge of what separates him from a villain and then willingly step away from that edge. It’s very Jungian, embracing one’s shadow self and assimilating it to the self to become whole but the process is risky and you can very easily just become a villain without friends and allies who keep you in check and centered in who you really are. It’s a deeply complicated lesson that is made very simple, your friends and loved ones will save you.

What drew you to pursue a major in cartooning at the School of Visual Arts, and how did your time there shape your artistic journey?

I loved comics and manga, a friend of mine told me that SVA had a major for cartooning which is a very rare major. Most schools don't have that as a singular major, so once I knew that- I pursued SVA without ever considering a back up school, much to my grandmother's dismay.

What sparked your fascination with oil painting after graduating from SVA, and how did you begin teaching yourself this medium?

At SVA I met a very close friend who is a brother to me at this point, he was very ambitious with his art and like myself, a bit frustrated with where we were creatively. I wanted comics that could be taken as seriously as fine art, comics that could be posted up at the MET. We’d talk for hours about art, go to the MET when it opened and leave about when it was time to close. I’d point out the powerful storytelling and symbolism that I loved in those paintings and at a certain point he just asked me flat out, “why don't you just try painting? All the things you want to accomplish in art, people have done in painting.” I never considered myself a painter, I didn't know how, but the idea wouldn't leave my mind so I picked up some cheap paint and brushes and gave it a shot.

How did learning about the stories and histories of classical religious painting influence your approach to storytelling in your art?

The stories from religious parables are so dense and rich with meaning that it’s hard not to be inspired by them. These stories are centuries of what really is just human learning experiences distilled down into a simple narrative. History is much the same way, often given a lesson at the end of its telling. When I make art about something I observe in the world or core to human nature, I try to approach it as if I were telling a parable.

How did attending the Hunter MFA program contribute to your development as an oil painter and an Artist?

I learned to paint in isolation, I didn't care to try painting in SVA and I mostly hung with cartoonists, musicians and even some sculptures. I knew little about painters and their methods. Going to Hunter surrounded me by tons of other painters. So I got to be exposed to different methods, different philosophies, practices and even different flaws. It was critical.

Can you describe your process for incorporating symbolic vocabulary into your narrative-based works?

I ask myself what is it that I am attempting to communicate? A lot of it comes from trying to visualize things we often speak in metaphor, for instance to say I feel broken, what does that look like? If I'm disconnected or alone, what does that look like? How do I make a painting about being unable to reach someone close to my heart? These questions start to free associate imagery in my mind and over time, the right symbol is found, sometimes even guessed.

How have artists like Francisco Goya influenced your work, particularly in illustrating human tragedies?

Goya’s disasters of war have such a visceral punch to them. The imagery is horrifying, fields of bodies, women being carried off by soldiers, desperate struggles for survival and yet it is all so beautiful. The eye doesn't dart away in disgust, it’s drawn deeper in and it can even be uncomfortable to take pleasure in the beauty of such an ugly image. I take inspiration from him in that regard, I try not to shy

away from darker or heavier subject matter and I aim to make it just as beautiful so that you can't look away from the horror.

What themes or projects are you excited to explore in your future works, and how do you see your art evolving in the coming years?

I think there is an abundance of subject matter at the moment, my cup overrunneth. I try to keep my finger on the pulse of how people are feeling, on how I am feeling and we are in some dark times. There is a lot to reflect on, to draw from and to study. I expect it all to find its way onto my canvas soon enough. I am always trying to improve and I think the intensity can be pushed, the texture and contrast can be pushed, the scale I work on can also stand to be pushed.

Describe a real-life experience that influence your work.

I was very interested in a niche subculture that was developing online that was called the Red Pill community. It had started off talking about self-improvement for young men, evolutionary psychology and the shift in dating dynamics. The idea initially seemed to be to try and offer a path for the self proclaimed incels to escape incelldom. Very rapidly that subculture became corrupted with bad actors who were hyper focusing the conversation on the faults of women and new social norms. It reduced everything into asymmetric warfare between the sexes and eventually the subculture suffered from factionalism. There were now the red pill guys, who would embrace a materialistic and asymmetric approach to relationships and then there were the black pillers, who believed the damage was done, lets just be incels forever and many others. I thought it was tragic, many of the incels not only had never had a relationship with a partner, they didn't even have friends and now they were being taken advantage of by grifters. On Top of that, incel became an insult and shoved into a political conversation about “incel rage.” I imagined a group of the most alone, the most outside, outsider group possible now embracing the meme of becoming the monster they were believed to be. It inspired paintings I presented in a two person show at Someday Gallery in 2022, all about these young male figures becoming monsters and hunting down people with cupid arrows like in my painting “Lost boys tirade.

Peter Chan