I am frequently asked "Scott, what is your artwork about?".

My artwork is the exploration and expression of personal spirituality and psychology through symbolic imagery derived from dreams, mythology, artistic masterworks and universal archetypes.

Which usually gets people to leave me alone. For those of you loitering about with nothing better to do, you can read on.

I believe that art is the creative response to the demands and expectations of society. Great art is that which communicates the intangible aspect of being.

Art is the visible expression of the character of a culture. By this I mean that if I look back at the artwork that was produced during a certain time in a certain place and take sort of a cultural snapshot, a personality would emerge. Think about Egyptian art, Chinese art, African art or even Nazi art. Each of these has a character unique to its time and place. I do not believe this is a conscious intention of these artists (except maybe in regimes like Nazism). Instead it is the visual language imposed by their society.

I believe it is fair to say that freedom of opinion and action (within reason) is the most important and defining aspect of our culture, second only to capitalism. Almost all of the people I know believe they have a right to their opinion and way of life and would probably actively defend themselves against anything that infringed on this right.

With technology, the world is literally at our fingertips. This is clearly illustrated by flipping through the channels on TV or you may be sitting in some remote corner of the world reading this. So many ideas are now readily accessible with little if any way to determine what is important.

Artists are just like regular folk. No really, stop laughing. We believe that we have the right to our own opinions and way of life and would probably actively defend ourselves against anything that infringed on this right.

This is why our own art world, to put it very nicely, is so multifaceted. Artists express the dreams, nightmares, feelings, ideas, styles, etc. of our times. The fact that we consciously separate art from other things (We have special places to go and experience art.) is another aspect of our culture and a whole other can of worms.

I am interested in my connection to the larger world and history. I believe that philosophy, science, religion (mythology) and the arts are supposed to unite eternal and temporal. Today they do the opposite.

My own artwork depicts my life, my reaction to the world, and my thoughts and emotions about this strange trip. I use metaphors, allegory, dream content, art history, and anything else that is relevant to my life. Photography and video could much more exactly capture my daily visual life. But at this point in my life I do not wish to copy the machine nor do I have the disposition of the photographer.

I also find talking and writing quite frustrating and usually painful for those of you who have to suffer through it. Just ask my wife. My words and thoughts are like a box full of puppies. While they are in my head they are easy to manage and relatively ordered. But as they spill playfully and enthusiastically out my mouth they go off in directions I had not intended or desired and quite often they grow up to be great big mean dogs that come back to bite me on the ass.

With a painting or sculpture it is all there. A simple image on a single piece of paper can express a number of very different ideas and may be based on, or draw inspiration from a variety of other artworks, events, and literary sources. As I work I do not have to reread or remember or rethink what I have done because I can see it in an instant.

The drawing below is titled Theology.

It has had an interesting evolution (Pun intended) and has had several incarnations that can be traced back to a painting that I did just after I had received my MFA called Portrait Of A Man Wearing A Red Tarpon.

This painting is based on a painting by the artist Jan Van Eyck titled Portrait of a Man Wearing a Red Turban.

During his lifetime, the artist was a respected professional. His painting is said to be a self-portrait. It is intense, secure and proud. The turban may be an allusion to worldliness. In 1992 I had just received my MFA. I had a beautiful wife, a beautiful daughter, a beautiful mortgage and no job. I felt none of the things that his painting made me feel.

At this same time I was seriously considering the way contemporary artists depict religious and spiritual ideas. I had already painted several versions of the Madonna and Fish that substitute a fish for the Christ child.

Early Christians had used the fish as a recognition sign of their religion. It was also identified as the "Ichthus," an acronym from the Greek, "Lesous Christos Theou Uios Soter," or "Jesus Christ the Son of God, Saviour."

Today this secret symbol is on the bumper of most Christian's cars. It has become a logo or brand label. It declares what team you are on.

Following this train of thought, I tried to depict the way that I felt men express their spirituality. We wear it like armor to defend us from evil. Leonardo's drawing Profile Of A Warrior Wearing An Elaborate Helmet had the disposition that I felt.

Several other versions followed.

Including this one titled Study for Theology.

But it was not till I had left the idea for a while and finished a series of work on the Icarus and Daedalus myth that the final pieces fell into place.

Theology is the study of religious faith, practice, and experience, especially the study of God and of God's relation to the world.

If God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, heaven is closed to us. We are separate from and cannot experience God directly except through death. As far as I know, every religious text has been written by a human.

 

The drawing depicts a man pointing to a piece of paper with instructions that illustrate how to fold an origami eagle. This is Jan Van Eyck's image. On top of his head sits a finch. He is unaware of the real bird on his head. He has turned his back on the world. Nature, in this case represented by the trees, is dead. She has been sacrificed to make the paper for the instructions and for my drawing. As the world dies so does he. His scalp is as barren as the landscape. The only things that break the illusion of his world are the bird, the instructions, and death (hair).