Quick Draw Artist Interview #24: Jonathan Scott


Quick Draw Artist Interviews are a series of interviews conducted by Otino Corsano using Facebook's IM Chat feature. Spontaneous conversations with international artists are recorded and documented specifically for publication on this blog.

Quick: mystery. The power of art is a wonderful thing. Image image transporting us from the cars cares and concerns of our workaday world into; we read about them everyday in our newspapers; we see them every night on our television screens. Surrounded by such misery and degradation, our sensitivity becomes coarsened and our spirits desensitized. I promise you this. Draw: art about art.

Jonathan Scott (b. Glasgow, UK) Jonathan Scott is a Scottish artist based in Toronto. He received his Master of Fine Art from the Glasgow School of Art in 2005 and subsequently was granted a number of significant awards, including a Henry Moore Foundation Grant. He has made a number of solo exhibitions in the UK, and has exhibited internationally, including Australia, China, Mexico, Sweden, Germany. Recent exhibitions include 'Face of an Angel, Voice of a Demon' (commissioned by EmergeD as part of the Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Visual Art); 'New Ruins' (EmergeD in the City Watch House, Melbourne); 'Re-escape' (Transmission Gallery project in Hamburg); 'Exit Strategy' (CAFA, Beijing); 'Syncopations: Art from Great Britain Now' (Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm); 'Prospect Drawing Prize' (Tea Buildings, London). Scott lives and works in Toronto, and is represented by Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects, Toronto. 



Jonny Scott

Chat Conversation Start

Friday
           
8:30pm



Jonny
Hey Otino, 
You about tonight?
           
8:34pm


Otino
I am - yet exhausted.
I'm sorry.
I really want to find the time for the interview when I'm focused. Please know I'm still very interested in the work and our dialogue. Let's stay in communication this weekend.




8:35pm



Jonny
No problem, I know the feeling. Suits me. Will be in contact soon.









###

I lost the opportunity to fully complete my interview with Jonathan Scott.
I met him when I viewed his exhibition:

“Jonathan Scott, Burn Your Neighbours”
September 27 - Oct 21, 2012

I used to thrive on consistency – not necessarily perfection – yet the advantage of time ensured the completion of anything. I’m older and my fails are nevertheless always surprising in a way where I’m impressed at how I find difficulty in accurately tracing the causes.

###






8:39pm



Otino
Thanks for your understanding.
Sincerely Sorry its been a very busy week.




           
8:40pm



Jonny
Cool have a nice relaxing evening.




           
8:42pm



Otino
Thanks Jonny - much appreciated.









           
###

I would like the opportunity to explain
I’m not an art critic.
I like to say I’m a new genres artist not only because it respectfully traces my practice back to my West Coast mentors; yet also I want to make art in new areas. Art writing has been one of the arenas I have enjoyed exploring.

These interviews are performative and to a degree constructed.
I have never been paid for writing any of my Quick Draw Interviews and I’m fine with this since it enables me the freedom I seek as an artist primarily.
It also helps ensure the content is never manipulated by overarching controls. 
I like to think this setup enables me to speak – as in both content and form  - in unrestricting ways impossible in other setups.

###


Today
           
6:01pm



Otino
Tonight is good for the interview if you are free.
Give me a call to set a time.

If I happen not to hear the phone try several times as I'm home tonight.



###

Jonathan Scott is a phenomenal artist. I can say this without hesitation for many reasons and it is a nice feeling to have secured a creative space where I do not immediately have to justify my sincere view under any specific context.

My opinions are sometimes immediate and other times slowly meld after research and struggle; I instantly perceived Jonathan’s work to be humble yet rich in its divisions and even in an interview of this brevity, Scott refused to lock his production into any single mode or read. So best of both worlds. This unsettling imbalance is nice when paired with carefully thought forms.

Like me Jonathan is a Dad and I imagine this very practical role can render even the most radiant of art as distant similar to when feeling is replaced by tiny bursting pins of numbness after rising from a folded posture.
   
###


7:03pm



Jonny
Hi Otino,

Unfortunately I'm on kid duty tonight, as Claire is working.
We can try as before, but I will definitely be free tomorrow night. 
sorry, speak soon. 
Best Jonny




           
9:06pm



Otino
No worries. It will happen. :)
Tomorrow could work. Always give me a call beforehand.

what is your tel#?

Thanks,
Otino



###
           
I’m less a fraud and more a decoy. Since I’m not a real critic I have the ability to leverage my alloyed status as an undercover fly on a host’s wall and let me tell you I would never trade my artist title for a critic’s stature of taste.  I’m sure artists find it hard to believe the horrors of life as an art writer since it rare for anyone to even ask them for their opinion.

I’ve been fortunate to be accepted by purer critics just long enough to learn of one simple and consistent request: allow them the opportunity to be critical.
I think this is fair since as artists we ask for the right to both experimental concepts and production. Good critics write ‘bad’ reviews and to receive one is the equivalent of your closest friend freezing their own breathing to ensure future respiration. Let’s give them this space and walk away without whiplash.

Scott is a good artist to help me comprehend my failings as an artist/interviewer.

###


9:20pm



Jonny
Hi Otino,



My number is XXX XXX-XXXX.




My kid has just fallen asleep, so if you wanted to get started we could try. Interruption may follow though....






###

I used to write a yearly post on my blog titled the “Underdog Award of Distinction” and I have decided to retire the prize. A close friend gently and graciously explained to me the dangers of celebrating an artist’s lack of recognition as less counter culture genius as it reads more as a back-handed compliment any way you serve it.

This was never my intention and so I'm grateful for her honesty.

###


9:24pm



Otino
I'll need a few minutes to prepare.
Can I call you in 15 - 20 minutes?




           
9:25pm



Jonny
yeah but call this number XXX XXX-XXXX.
i left my phone in the bedroom.




           
9:25pm



Otino
K. In any case I will call soon. Thanks for the extra prep time.






###

I began writing FB IM Chat interviews after a stint of finely woven email dialogues left me feeling synthetic. Lately it’s been difficult not to pre-type chunks of questions again and just paste them into the dialogue as I find predictable and easy to anticipate.

I appreciate Scott’s practice denies anticipated interpretation. Vertigo.

###
           

9:35pm



Jonny
ok. if i don't respond or stop typing its because i'm putting my kid to sleep again.







###                 




I tell people I’m a visual thinker to mask the truth I’m finding it more difficult to remember names as I age. The truth is I rarely forget a face and growing up in a town like Toronto it is always disconcerting when you know you know someone and yet can’t place a name to a face.

I turn to a guy in an art gallery and I think it is Scott. He stares at me and then there is the awkward moment when even my visual memory has failed me. “I’m sorry, I thought you were an artist” I shrink. “I’m a musician.” He replies.

No Sound is ever the Same Twice.

###


9:42pm



Otino
Hi Jonny. 

Thanks for taking the time to speak to me tonight and thanks for your patience as it has taken a while for me to find the time for this anticipated interview.
           
            



9:43pm


Jonny
Hi Otino, I'm pleased to finally get round to it.




           
9:46pm



Otino
I wonder if we can begin with an introduction to your practice with an overview of an early work to set the framework for your approach.




"Face of an Angel, Voice of a Demon" 2006 
displays characteristic graphics carried through to future works. 
What was the source or starting point for what appears to be tracings in this early work?

9:49pm



Jonny
I have always collected newspaper cuttings and use a lot of the images and content in my work.



 These sources are often points of departure, and I usually follow a sort of derive in assembling the work’s composite parts.




           
9:53pm



Otino
What was the guiding concept for this work?




           
9:56pm



Jonny
At the time I was interested in trauma, and the site for this installation allowed for a relatively charged work.




           
9:57pm



Otino
Was this work included in the "Dead Planetarium" solo show at Coleman Project space in London in 2007?




           

9:58pm



Jonny
No. The work was commissioned by Amy Sales for the Glasgow International in 2006.




           
10:01pm



Otino
The "Research Notes" listed for the London solo show take on a variety of perspectives colliding in a literally edited text merging deleted entries with a semi-completed final text exploded and complex as the "Face of an Angel, Voice of a Demon" 2006 work.





I'm wondering how this type of conceptual complexity has transformed into new work - so pristine, crystal and polished - both formally and theoretically?




Or are these new sculptures also still composite structures?




*Or are the new sculptures still evolving as composite structures?

10:07pm



Jonny
The works share a lot of the same conceptual characters, they just have slightly different energies.




           
10:09pm



Otino
I'm back. keep typing.








###

For a young artist such as Scott                     For Jonny Scott’s generation In a post-Pop, post-Warhol

not the message about the product, but the intensity of the transmitted affects and perceptions
enthusiasm, when the yuppie reads ... the communication of affective intensities beneath the level of meaning (“Yes, this is how I design my publicities!”), or when he reads about exploding the limits of self- contained subjectivity and directly coupling man to a machine (“This reminds me of my son’s favorite toy, the action-man that can turn into a car!”), or about the need to reinvent oneself permanently, opening oneself up to a multitude of desires that push us to the limit
The new art is fresh, exciting and vibrant.
###
           
10:09pm


Jonny
This is partly to do with the context of when they were made and also where they were exhibited.
           
10:10pm



Otino
Are there general links still remaining in the work now outside of any site specific reads?
           
10:13pm



Jonny
Yes. I think that a certain appreciation for the antagonistic drives that I'm interested in addressing.




           
10:14pm



Otino
Can we pick this up again tomorrow night Jonny?
           
10:15pm



Jonny
Sure no problem. I'm enjoying where it’s going. speak tomorrow.




           
10:15pm



Otino
Great. Thanks.


###

Go and buy Jonathan Scott’s artwork. I can say this. I’m allowed.

You will be happy if you do. I give you my word.








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