{"id":11685,"date":"2020-04-13T08:15:23","date_gmt":"2020-04-13T15:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/paintingperceptions.com\/?p=11685"},"modified":"2021-12-02T13:13:32","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T21:13:32","slug":"interview-with-bill-scott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paintingperceptions.com\/interview-with-bill-scott\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Bill Scott"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bill Scott’s studio, Philadelphia, 2020<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m delighted to share this email interview with Bill Scott who writes from his home in Philadelphia. I\u2019ve long been intrigued by Bill Scott’s paintings and prints and was lucky to view an exhibition of his works last year at The Pierre Hotel in NYC. He was scheduled to have a solo show this April at his gallery, Hollis Taggart<\/a> in Chelsea, NYC, NY. that was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. His unapologetic celebrations of beauty, lyrical and joyful abstractions acts as a salve of color and light and a reminder there is still life and hope in our feverous times.<\/p>\n

Scott’s 2016 interview by Jennifer Samet<\/a> on hyperallergic.com’s<\/em> beer with a painter is a fabulous in-depth look at his background and process. Ms. Samet asked him about the associations and motifs present in his work, Scott replied by saying; …<\/p>\n

“…I think I paint bittersweet fictions. I don\u2019t believe the imagery I paint exists. I am not so removed from the world that I think it is pleasant out there. I think it is close to awful. We are walking towards extinction. So, why wouldn\u2019t I paint the Garden of Eden or something pleasurable? What am I going to gain, spiritually or emotionally, from painting something miserable? I would much rather live in a fantasy world. I want a kindness in the painting. I want there to be an emotional ease. Generally, I don\u2019t feel that in life, so I want it to exist in the paintings.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bio from Hollis Taggart<\/a>
\nBill Scott began his career studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1974 to 1979 but considers longer periods of working informally with painters Jane Piper and Joan Mitchell as the pivotal influences of his own painting.<\/p>\n

Scott has exhibited widely over the past three decades at museums that include Swarthmore College, Hollins University, the State Museum of Pennsylvania, the National Academy Museum, and the University of Delaware. Major public collections with Scott\u2019s work include Cleveland Museum of Art, Delaware Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Museum of Art, and Woodmere Art Museum. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, ARTnews, The New York Times, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2006, he was awarded a Distinguished Alumni award from the Pennsylvania Academy.<\/p>\n

Scott was raised in Haverford in suburban Philadelphia and studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1974 to 1979. Throughout this time he also studied informally with the painter Jane Piper (1916-1991) whose studio he visited frequently.<\/p>\n

In 1980, while living in Paris on a travel prize, he met the American abstract expressionist painter Joan Mitchell (1925-1992). In subsequent years he stayed at her home in V\u00e9theuil and painted in her studio. After Mitchell died, he wrote an appreciation of her published in Art in America.<\/a><\/p>\n

Beginning in 2004 Scott has been represented by Hollis Taggart Galleries where he has had seven solo exhibitions.<\/p>\n

In a 2007 review Mario Naves wrote in The Observer.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Bill Scott is a radical artist, but not in the sense to which we\u2019ve become accustomed.<\/p>\n

Mr. Scott, whose abstract paintings and prints are on display at Hollis Taggart Galleries, doesn\u2019t rely on slick theatrics, obtuse theorizing or technological appropriation. He has the temerity to plumb something deeper than his navel or the superficialities of pop culture. In an era dominated by secondhand conceptualism, he wrestles with firsthand experience. The confrontational act that Mr. Scott engages in? He looks out the window and likes what he sees.<\/p>\n

Looking Through is, in fact, the title of Mr. Scott\u2019s exhibition, calling forth questions of viewpoint, transparency, distance, detachment and, in the end, joyous connection with the world. The paintings demonstrate that what\u2019s out there is worthy of our time, attention and, in this artist\u2019s hands, unalloyed pleasure.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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all photographs of Bill Scott’s artwork are by Joseph Painter.
\nThe artist wishes to thank Gretchen Dykstra for her help in editing this interview<\/p>\n

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