Painting for "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise"

Artist Jason Mitcham American, born 1979

Date2010

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions37 x 50 in. (94 x 127 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the William R. Roberson Jr. and Frances M. Roberson Endowed Fund for North Carolina Art

Object number2015.36.1

On View

Not on view

Label TextThis painting is the basis for a music video that Mitcham created for The Avett Brothers’ song, “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise.” The song addresses the “temporary nature of our buildings” and “accepting a temporary state that we may be in,” Scott Avett explains. Avett sings that he is “frightened by those who don’t see” the destructive rate at which communities develop land, and Mitcham’s video visually exposes the foundation of this fear.

To create the video for Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise, Mitcham mounted a blank canvas to his studio wall and focused a fixed camera on the canvas. He painted, and photographed, approximately 2,600 alterations to this single painting (every ten alterations equals one second of filming). Mitcham then used the photographs to create a stop-motion animation video, where the animation is captured one frame at a time to create the illusion of movement. The finished painting presents the viewer with the very last scene of the completed video.

The narrative within the video follows the expansion and decline of the landscape as it develops to meet human needs. At the center of the story is a billboard that adjusts to the growth that surrounds it. For Mitcham, the billboard is the sole character in the video, and it watches over the landscape as time passes. With the rise and fall of the town’s infrastructure, this billboard remains a constant presence, although it also transforms, slowly, over time, showing that nothing is left unimpacted.

[L. Dougherty, "Scott Avett: Invisible," 2019]ProvenanceCreated upstate NY, 2010; collection of the artist; sold to NCMA, 2015.Published ReferencesJennifer Dasal, “A New Space for Video and Multimedia Works,” in North Carolina Museum of Art Preview (Winter 2015), discussed 18.
Exhibition HistoryAnnapolis, MD, Wynn Bone Gallery, “Nowhere is Everywhere,” April 30–May 31, 2011; Sarasota, FL, Sarasota Art Center, “Material Matters,” November 3–December 31, 2011.
Object Rights Statement

The North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) makes images of its collection available online to support research and scholarship and to inform and educate the public. Certain works of art, as well as the photographs of those works of art, may be protected by copyright, trademark, or related interests not owned by the NCMA. The responsibility for ascertaining whether any such rights exist and for obtaining all other necessary permissions remains with the applicant. To request images and/or permissions from the NCMA, please complete our online request form.