Scott Conary
While openly enamored by light and color, and the alchemy that is oil paint on a flat surface, I am a subject-driven painter. Through repeated, sometimes aggressive revision, and rigorous observation - a kind of curiosity that verges on veneration - I strive to create representational paintings that crackle with a tangible presence and a subtle yet compelling narrative. To achieve this, I pull tight the line between abstraction and representation, between intuition and craft, to create paintings that, ideally, feel both inevitable and spontaneous.
These are paintings of mundane subjects - eggs, flowers, fabric, meat, a child's back - with which we have sometimes complicated and often ambiguous relationships. Presented directly, often centered, and pulled out of their context, they have something to say about how we interact with the world and each other, and how we define beauty: the mess and splendor of the broken egg that was once a world of possibilities; the raw meat that is celebrated but disgusts; the glimmering blue folds of an improvised shelter that otherwise blights the landscape; the sagging, withering flower past its prime that entrances because of its transience not despite it.
Fueling, inspiring, and shaping much of this work is our remarkable daughter and her uncertain life. Developmentally and medically complicated, she and our shared experiences have challenged my sense of self, my priorities, and my assumptions - including those about what it means to be an artist. It is from this that my focus has been directed towards the narrative and questions about beauty and worth, and why I have wandered deeper into the thicket of representational work.
Address: 1801 NW Upshur St #590 Portland OR 97209
Drawing|Oil|Painting
Community: NW Portland
Studio Number: 81
Email: scott@scottconary.com
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