Opening Reception Friday, November 9, 5-7pm
Scott Greene’s paintings are bold and thoroughly relevant. Greene has always been known as a social commentator, using art historical iconography to signify human impact on the natural world. He has been described as a neo-Romantic painter, in that his painting style is nothing short of dreamy. His palette and his handling of paint rival that of European Old Masters. In a bait and switch type tactic, Greene lures the viewer into his works with their lush paint surface and beauty; the viewer then finds him/herself inside an otherworldly socio-political conundrum they are compelled to explore before leaving.
Greene has created a wholly new, scathing, ironic, sublimely beautiful body of work in response to the political divide around issues such as climate change, immigration, and basic human rights. The imagery is centered on a circus theme—apropos of our current society. One painting features a circus “tableau wagon,” painted with images of Mexican children separated from their families. Another painting depicts a locomotive hurling itself forward through a red, menacing sea upon which floats a red, white, and blue basketball. Clowns pile high upon a tiny clown car in yet another work.
Scott Greene writes about his newest body of work: “This is an intense time to be a painter of my sort. Nothing seems too ridiculous, all stories pale to reality. So this work is emotionally driven by extreme shifts to everything we know about being American citizens, whatever that is now. Clown cars, runaway locomotives, quaint cruelty on the prairie, all part of the illusion of power—the farce we now perform in.”
Greene’s career trajectory is just as bold as his subject matter. In just the last three years, Greene’s paintings have been exhibited in major museums throughout New Mexico including the Las Cruces Museum of Art, The Albuquerque Museum of Art, New Mexico Museum of Art, the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, and 516 Arts—Albuquerque’s Contemporary Museum. PBS aired a television special featuring Scott’s paintings and an interview about his artistic process and philosophy, in the fall of 2017.
This exhibition at Turner Carroll is held in conjunction with “Currency” at 516 Arts, Albuquerque’s contemporary art museum. “Currency,” curated by Dr. Josie Lopez, “examines the relationship between art and money by exploring the flaws of our current economic reality. Literary critic and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin described the concept of Carnival as a subversive, disruptive, world-upside-down event in which the hypocrisy of everyday life was unmasked. During Carnival, social structures including those that defined class and status were disrupted by common people.”
Scott Greene began his art school education at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, and received his B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute and his M.F.A. from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Adopting the language and finish of classical painting, Greene often uses the composition of a historical work as a matrix for making a painting that humorously examines the relationship between politics, nature and culture.
In addition to New Mexico museums, Greene’s work has been included in exhibitions internationally and throughout the United States, including non-profit and museum shows at the Schneider Art Museum, the Palo Alto Art Center, the Triton Museum, the Arnot Museum of Art, and the Austin Museum of Art. Greene is the recipient of a Juror Selection Award from the Lubbock Fine Arts Center, and an Art Matters Fellowship. He completed a residency at the Roswell Museum in New Mexico and has works in the public collections of the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art in Roswell and the McKesson Corporation in San Francisco. Greene’s work was recently featured in Environmental Impact, a traveling exhibition originating at Canton Museum of Art in Ohio.
Work in the exhibition may be viewed here.
For more information and high resolution images, please visit https://turnercarrollgallery.com/press-area/ or info@turnercarrollgallery.com