Landscapes on Fire: Paintings by Michael Scott
Fire on the landscape is the central theme of an ongoing Michael Scott exhibition at the Gilcrease Museum in Oklahoma.
Tulsa, OK
There is a strange duality to fire that has been engrossing New Mexico painter Michael Scott, who can stare into flames and see both destruction and devastation, but also renewal, rebirth and redemption.
“Fire is attached psychologically to the human spirit. It can be respite. It can be a meditation or a dream in front of the fire in the kiva. It can be a pondering of life. The same kind of fire that destroys also replenishes,” Scott says. He recalls a trip he took to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, where he witnessed fire ravage the land. “It wasn’t blazing but it was quite intense. It was intense enough that I couldn’t leave the Grand Canyon once I was there. That trip really impacted a number of my early fire paintings. But I don’t want people to view this series as one of destruction. There is a spiritual component, especially with how nature heals itself and makes itself healthier.”
Scott’s fire paintings are part of an exhibition now open at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Landscapes on Fire: Paintings by Michael Scott, which opened in August, features 34 paintings, including 14 larger works. One of the pieces, Buffalo River Diptych, is more than 12 feet wide. The works are so large they are meant to be admired differently depending on where the viewer is positioned in front of it, something that Scott learned to achieve after studying at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in Maine.
“It was instrumental in terms of perceptual space and how it challenged the viewer in terms of where they stood in front of the piece. You can enter the painting with an almost peripheral perception,” he says. “It’s extremely important that you experience the work with two eyes in front of you, but also all the parts that fall outside your main focus. Your eyes start getting into object delineation, and a dance starts to occur with the objects, whether they are a mountain or a tree or an elk.”
Works in the show include pieces that show flames, such as Ghost Owls, Mt. Rainier
Campfire and Fire Orb, but also works that show the effects of fire and paintings that show fire-like qualities. In Buffalo River Early Mist, for example, Scott paints water that seems to steam naturally amid the cold morning.
Scott is having a busy season: not only does he have the exhibition at the Gilcrease, which runs through February 21, but he also has a new solo show at EVOKE Contemporary in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That show, Fire and Ice, runs through February 20.