Adam Staley Groves
b. 1976, Iowa, USA
I grew up in the Midwestern United States. In my earlier years I practiced painting, fiction, and music. I was an avid reader of philosophy, history, and mysticism. When I began higher education I was drawn to theory and poetry. In 2005, I moved to Chicago and had a short career in progressive journalism. My graduate studies in continental philosophy were conducted with the European Graduate School, (2005-2011). During this period I professionalized as academic teacher, having earned a Master’s and PhD from the Swiss-based school. In 2011, I enrolled in the University of Aberdeen, School of Language and Literature, Centre for Modern Thought. There I earned a second PhD (2016) with emphases on the relationship between poetry and philosophy, specifically the American poet Wallace Stevens and French philosopher, Jean Andre Wahl. In 2012 I moved to Singapore to work in higher education. By early 2019, I semi-retired from university life to become a florist. It was around this time period that I decided to paint.
Prior to painting I published two volumes of poetry, Poetry Vocare 2011, and Filial Arcade 2013, currently available from Punctum Books, NY. I have published poems in other periodicals on occasion. In 2016, “Ob-Literate” a musical composition based on my poem of the same name, was composed and recorded in The Hauge, 2016. As my interest in creating visual art has grown, I began to write on the subject matter, specifically the photography of Ren Hang (2017), the paintings of Ruben Pang (2019) and Joshua Miller, (2020). In terms of traditional academic publishing, I recently authored original research on Wallace Stevens and his theory of poetry, specifically in regard to the relationship between technology and the imagination. In 2023, I held my first solo exhibit of paintings “Somewhere Else, Forever” at Superbroadcast in Singapore. Currently I am authoring an academic monograph on Poetry and the UFO Phenomenon.