For artist Adam Ekberg, moving past boredom means finding a space in which the mind is free to devise a logic of its own, and ordinary objects are liberated from the drudgery of daily life. The resulting photographic interventions are both mysterious and delightful. Cocktail umbrellas no longer shade tropical beverages but rather occupy a sunny beach en masse. Roller skates once relegated to an indoor rink now drag-race across an empty field propelled by burning aerosol cans.

Each of these photographs begins as a sketch drawn in a studio/barn in western New Jersey. As Ekberg realizes his staged happenings, the sketches pinned to the barn walls are removed and replaced with small finished photographs—constituting a small victory. His constructions, made entirely in camera without the aid of Photoshop, are not easily decoded or resolved. Ekberg’s translation of boredom reveals the poignant beauty that can take shape, however fleetingly, when the glint of possibility leaps out from the mundane.

Adam Ekberg received his MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has recently had solo exhibitions at ClampArt, New York; DeSoto Gallery, Los Angeles; Thomas Robertello Gallery, Chicago; Platform Gallery, Seattle; and Fotografiska, Stockholm, Sweden. His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at venues such as Aran Cravey Gallery, Los Angles CA; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago; RayKo Photo Center, San Francisco; and Crawford Art Gallery, Cork Ireland. His work is in the collections of The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others. He is the recipient of the Society for Photographic Education’s Imagemaker Award (2015). He was awarded a Tanne Foundation Award (2013). Ekberg has also received grants from Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs (2008, 2009, 2010) and the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Grant (2005).