Describe your art in 30 words or less.
When I’m painting I often explore abstract, quasi-symbolic geometric patterns, often merged with turbulent masses of cloud, coaxing a sense of space from the interplay of light, color, and contrast.
Talk about how you start your pieces.
Some of my pieces I plan for weeks or months ahead of time, test out different techniques, explore different combinations of media, but I find that many of the best are the product of a feverish need to complete something that started as a free-wheeling dollop of paint with no real life goals. I often start with circles.
Talk about a book you have read recently that has influenced your art.
I recently finished Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick. If you have a sturdy understanding of basic math and physics, you should be able to digest this mind-blowing book about how the most complex and unpredictable systems in nature contain hidden order, and how information can spontaneously self-organize, or just as spontaneously, drop out of their normal rhythms. It’s a little arcane, but delightfully unusual. Any new lens through which you can view nature is a lens that can create art.
What would you make if you had no restrictions (monetary, temporal, or otherwise)?
I would love to find some way to paint enormous murals overnight, maybe using some kind of robotic paint sprayer on a telescoping boom, kaleidoscope of colors at the ready. I’d love to do surprise transformations of blank walls into huge, vibrant patterns that dance somewhere between math and mess.
If you could show your work anywhere, where would it be?
I’m not really much for showing my work, but I’m all for sharing it. A lot of my pieces live in my friends’ bedrooms, most of the rest stay home with me, and I sort of like it that way. I’d like to show it somewhere it won’t be compared to other pieces – museums and galleries are rough on art because they make it compete for attention with other pieces.
What kinds of things would you like to see happen in the arts community at Evergreen?
I would love to see more student art on display in public spaces, more murals and sculpture, anything to give the school more character. You know, help warm up the cold concrete!
By Issac Scott
