Vanity and Impermanence

My first memory of Kim Scott’s work is also one of my first memories of Sacramento.

Scott was showing with several other artists at the Toyroom Gallery back in 2002. I was wandering down K Street with a companion, and we had just started hanging out; you know, when you’re bored out of your mind and you know that the first date was a fluke because now you have nothing to talk about.

The small gallery space tucked into the back of a clothing boutique offered welcome respite from the rain that night. I also hoped it would provide something to talk about. It didn’t. But the art was amazing!

I didn’t know how to form an opinion on Scott’s work other than it appealed to me visually—bold color and subtle gradients, thick, ruby-red slabs of raw steak imposed over heads, all casually occupying comfortable, serene rooms or natural settings. The collision of gems, polished jewels and various cuts of bright red, raw meat create a textural feast, a visual orgasm. Very satisfying.

Scott has been showing and working as an artist in Sacramento, specifically the Del Paso Boulevard area for decades, as well as abroad. She saw the art boom of the ‘80s come to Sacramento, in galleries such as the Acme and Michael Himovitz. She even recently had a retrospective show of her work at the 1616 Gallery.

I turned onto the street to Scott’s home studio, deciding to park behind the vehicle I thought, on first sight, looked the most like it belonged to an artist. Looking at my phone for the address, I found I was right out front.

Scott and her husband, owner of the Toyroom Gallery, live and work within a small artist community called Surreal Estates. Building a vacant lot from the ground up with a group of like-minded artists, Surreal Estates is a functional artist community with 11 single-family units. The live/work space garnered interest nationally from other artists looking to own and work on a property while investing some serious sweat equity.

Scott has a show this month at Little Relics. The new body of work is recognizable as her work, and should not be missed. Decadent colors tell the story of a near future where bird watchers no longer have birds to watch.

So what was your sort of pathway to art or illustration?
My mother was an artist when I was growing up, so I did get a lot of encouragement from her. She would take me to art openings around town and with her to art classes at American River College. Perhaps that wouldn’t be enough in itself, but I already enjoyed drawing and fanciful stuff, sci-fi, comics. I liked dressing up and fantasy life role playing when I was a kid.

I liked to doodle, so I wouldn’t say those drawings were completed thoughts. I did a lot of drawing as a child, but many of them just weren’t finished pieces.

When I was in high school I had a teacher who was a serious artist, and he really put me through the ringer in terms of the creative process. I suppose he introduced me to the formality more, and then in community college for sure I had teachers like that. I’d really made art my whole life, I was considered the class artist in grade school, but when I got into college, I still didn’t realize that you could be an artist as a career, it was just like, something I did. When I was there I was taking like marine biology classes, and at some point there I thought, man I could be a half-assed marine biologist, or be a pretty good artist, because my interests were really in art. So that sort of cemented my direction a little bit, in finding out about becoming the person I wanted to become from that point.

Who kinda made you want to start doing the style or mode of art you do now?
Something I use to this day, I use myself as a gauge, so like when I see someone’s work, or eat something, or I hear music, or I see colors, or architecture. I just get some kind of feeling, and I think “Oh, I’d like give someone that kind of feeling from my work.”

When I was in college, one of my first exercises from my oil painting instructor was a self-portrait. I mean everyone does that, but I just kept doing it and doing it. After that assignment I just kept going into it and into it. They look somewhat like me, but they don’t have to look like me to tell that story.

I had one art history teacher who told me a story about a guy who goes to this cocktail party, and he stands in the corner for five minutes and nobody notices him, and then he’s there for an hour and people start saying “What’s that guy standing in the corner for?” and then a day goes by and the neighbors know about it, and then he’s there for a month, and he gets in the newspapers. The story there is … if you stick at something long enough, it creates its own momentum, and I knew I had more than just standing in the corner at my disposal, but I took that on, so I think the self portrait thing, pragmatically, the only thing I know about is where I’m coming from … anyway, so is it narcissistic? Maybe, but I feel like, with full impunity, I can talk about all the shit that goes on in my own mind, the crazy stuff, or the beautiful stuff, and maybe get that right, and not impose on anybody else. So I’ve done that a long time, standing in the corner working on that, and I’ve sort of gone all over the place.

Also, I took up bird watching a few years ago so I’m out in nature a lot, taking photographs of birds, and I was already doing paintings of birds, but I had to rely on someone else’s imagery, so they were always more made up than photographic.

The two things I focus on the most are vanity and impermanence. What is the vanity of what you are doing? What is the impermanence? So with that in mind, maybe it opens things up in the work.

What I’m expressing in my work about vanity is more about the human condition, about how it’s a crutch, and there’s a lot of suffering that comes from that. And it’s also funny too, it’s like clownish or foolish to hold on to things like that, but it’s human, a foible, or weakness, or a misunderstanding of how things are.

When did you feel the most a part of an artist community in Sacramento?
Probably the first strong community I felt a part of was the Acme Gallery group, and it was predominately started by David Stone, who now owns a gallery down in L.A. He was a Dadaist, but now he’s more into conceptual art. I used to do performance art as well as painting and sculptures. There were a lot of interesting artists in that group. After that, the Michael Himovitz gallery, which isn’t around anymore, but is now the 1616 Gallery.

During the mid- and late ‘80s there was a lot of money to be made in art; that was like Fast Times in Sacramento.

Was that a time when there was a more active creative class?
There was a very active creative class then. There were a lot of people who collected Sacramento artists during that period. Michael Himovitz helped during that period. He really brought about sort of a renaissance in Sacramento, and people still talk about what he brought to the arts community then. He was a guy that liked art, didn’t know a lot about it, but he was an innovative guy, and he wanted every artist in Sacramento to bring him their work. So he took it from everyone who would bring it, he formed for himself an opinion about what he wanted to show. He believed in it, and he found people that trusted him, and people bought it.

What would you say is motivating your upcoming show? What has changed in your focus?
Well, I think bird watching, but not just seeing birds, but observing nature, and the delicate balance and reading the newspapers about extinction and global warming, that’s a big part of it.

This body of work is really experimental … and it relates to the last work I did. My private working title for this show, which is sort of a reminder, is What Would the Bird Watcher Watch When There are No More Birds. So when I really started seeing that, and started internalizing it all, the beauty of nature and where things are going.

Check out Kim Scott’s solo show at Little Relics now through Aug. 30, 2015. Little Relics is located at 908 21st Street, Sacramento. Check out Littlerelics.com for more information and gallery hours. You can also sample Scott’s work at Feedyoureye.com.

Artist Robert Bowen returns to Sacramento for group show

A collection of exotic colored butterflies and beetles mounted in simple black frames hangs on the studio walls of San Francisco based artist Robert Bowen. Scattered around the room are various other oddities: animal skulls and mounted antlers, curious antiques and Disney collectibles. The latter might not seem so odd in comparison to the others, but in Bowen’s paintings he reveals to us exactly how he feels about Mickey and friends. One in particular shows Mickey Mouse standing at the center of the composition, his cartoon white hands rise into the air and violent electricity passes between his eight fingers. His head is cocked up, revealing his iconic grin that now seems sinister. Behind him is an enormous elephant skull; the tusks curling and mimicking Mickey’s shocking arch.

Although it all seems dark and sick at first glance, it’s hard not to ponder his sense of humor in all of this. Who paints Mario Lanza next to a giant banana that peels to reveal octopus tentacles? Or, Peter Criss of KISS appearing as Jesus with two giant kittens resting innocently in the foreground? It’s completely twisted but in a way that you can feel alright about being totally invested in it. A painting like St. Elmo’s Fire shows Bowen’s hilarious generational approach to subject matter. The lovable Sesame Street character Elmo is pictured as a biblical saint breathing fire as a white dove flies overhead.

“It’s what I thought was a pretty silly joke and then it turns out to be a painting I’m kind of proud of,” says Bowen.

Bowen himself isn’t the only one impressed with his paintings. Recently, Juxtapoz magazine said that Bowen “is overdue to blow up in the art world.” Even genre superstars like Alex Pardee (whom Bowen has collaborated with) have chimed in on his skills with a paintbrush.

Juxtapoz is arguably one of the high ranking authorities on pop surrealism (lowbrow if you can get away with it, new contemporary if you’re selling to the big wigs) and a glance through the monthly publication will surely point you in the direction of who and what is making waves in the scene. And though Bowen has had his time to shine, many artists who have done so similarly are no longer new and interesting and have simply become a drop in that ocean past the breakers. The key is change and, furthermore, reinvention. Artists like Doze and Twist (the latter who was an important influence for Bowen) have continued to reinvent themselves along the way and have thus staked a future claim for themselves in an oversaturated genre. Bowen is on track to do just that. He has continued to evolve by incorporating stencil, mixed media and sculpture into his shows and isn’t stopping there.

“I want to have bronze works of some of the elements in my paintings,” says Bowen. “Some of the figures and whimsical characters would make really cool bronze sculptures. It’s always in the back of my mind.”

For Bowen, bronzing harks back to his art school days, when he learned quickly that the painting program wasn’t for him. With his introversion toward other students and an overbearing faculty, Bowen eventually “gave up on having art school teach” him how to paint. Since he was already enrolled, Bowen made the switch to a major in sculpture, hoping to have better luck with his formal art education.

A glance at Bowen’s own art history leaves me wondering why he chose to attend art school in the first place. Graffiti was Bowen’s first love and on the walls is where he learned to paint and where he studied color theory and composition. When Bowen was a kid, art programs were being cut (sound familiar?) and there weren’t many outlets for creative expression.

“When we were all growing up, public schools were falling by the wayside,” recalls Bowen. “It’s sad that kids have to resort to doing something that’s considered illegal to get an artistic background.”

The graffiti influence is seen in Bowen’s paintings in a way that lends itself to his stylistic approach. The bright, bold colors of spray paint translate to acrylic selections on the canvas and what we see is beautifully rendered characters and natural world specimens mixed with lifelike portraits of pop icons like Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian or Batboy from the pages of Weekly World News. What I like about Bowen is that he’s a sort of keeper of all things cool in pop culture. He paints them to mock them, yes, but he also paints to preserve them. The images from his childhood are sacred inside his own mind, and we’re offered an exclusive glance at what he chooses to unearth via these portraits. He’s not embarrassed about being a self-proclaimed pop culture geek, and he’s quick to defend his favorite relics. A recent Twitter post from Bowen reads, “Dear Hollywood, PLEASE stop ruining everything that was cool about my youth one shitty movie at a time. It’s getting really sad…”

It wouldn’t be fair to pigeonhole Bowen by only shining a spotlight on his horror-like characters or his pop culture icons, though. The Audubon Society is a peak interest for Bowen, and we see that abundantly in his paintings. Out of the 51 images in his online gallery, nearly a quarter of them feature some sort of bird or bird-like element. And it doesn’t end there. Sloth, ferrets, tarantulas, bees, what appears to be Bowen’s dog and even Bowen himself make regular appearances in his work. Those curious collections that decorate his studio are fodder for his creativity, and he has no problem locking himself away and painting whatever sparks his interest.

“I’m kind of a hermit and I stay home,” says Bowen. “I’m totally fine just sitting in here and painting.”

You’d think living in San Francisco would prove to be a distraction. I know many creative minds that have lost their way in a city that has way too much to do all time. But Bowen maintains his focus, and maybe he learned a thing or two by living in a city with a slower pace. Bowen lived in Sacramento for about seven years before he made the move back to the Bay Area where he grew up. While living in Sacramento, he crafted his painting style alongside talented locals like John Stuart Berger, Kim Scott and Skinner. The late and sorely missed Toyroom Gallery was an important meeting spot for all these artists and Bowen showed there often.

“They always wanted to put us in shows,” remembers Bowen. “I showed a lot with Alex Pardee and Poor Al.”

After the Toyroom closed, many of the artists who showed there frequently continued to produce art but all went off in their own directions. There were scattered galleries here and there that offered shows that were similar, but none offered the kind of regular support and progression that Toyroom did.

“They had a good eye at the time, and they brought to the town what was needed and what wasn’t there. It’s a shame that it didn’t last very long because I think it’s still needed,” says Bowen.

Even though Bowen is “the one that got away,” he still has a special place in his heart for Sacramento. He’ll return June 12 like a prodigal son for the opening reception of Beyond the Frame at the Solomon Dubnick Gallery. Also on board for the exhibit are John Stuart Berger, Kim Scott, Gale Hart, Joshua Silveira and many others. Come see for yourself what makes a Robert Bowen show so hard to look away from.