BIOGRAPHY

Kenseth Armstead is a multimedia installation artist. His works have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art; the Brooklyn Museum; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the Studio Museum in Harlem; the Berlin VideoFest; and the MIT List Visual Arts Center. His videos, drawings and sculptures are included in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, African American Museum in Dallas, Texas and numerous public and private collections. The New York Times, L Magazine, Art in America, Village Voice, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post have favorably reviewed his videos, sculptures and multimedia installations.

The list of grants won in support of Armstead’s work includes the Camille Hanks-Cosby Fellowship, the NYFA Video Fellowship, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, the NYSCA Individual Artist Award in Film/Video and New Technical Production, the Film/Media Grant from the Creative Capital Foundation and, most recently, the Digital Matrix Commission from the Longwood Arts Project and Bronx Council on the Arts.

Armstead received a BFA from the Corcoran College of Art & Design in 1990. While still an undergraduate, he participated in the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Upon completion of his degree, he moved to New York City to attend the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program. He now holds an MS in Integrated Digital Media from the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, which awarded him The Excellence in Digital Media Award.

Armstead has co-authored multimedia installations collaboratively with the art-band, X-PRZ, which he co-founded with his mentor Tony Cokes in 1991. He was also the founding Managing Editor of Rhizome Internet, (rhizome.org) which he helped launch in 1996.

Scenes from Spook™ were presented in the Art Gallery of the Siggraph Asia 2009 conference in Yokohama, Japan. Outtakes from the Spook™ project were included in a feature length documentary which was broadcast on PBS nationally; “Lafayette: The Lost Hero,” directed by the academy award nominated, Oren Jacoby. Armstead was also an historical consultant on the project.

Artist Residencies have significantly contributed to Armstead's practice and professional growth. A non-exhaustive list includes, Harvestworks; the Castle Trebesice outside Prague, CZ; the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s, Workspace Program; Eyebeam Center for Art + Technology; and the Brooklyn Museum, Library and Archive; and Socrates Sculpture Park.

Armstead lives & works in Brooklyn, NY.