“I never quite know how to respond when people ask what my paintings are supposed to be. ‘What’s the narrative?' they’ll ask. For me, the narrative in any painting is the challenge of imagining how it was painted. I focus on how transparencies are juxtaposed with shapes of opaque color together with linear forms. I work actively on only one canvas at a time, but it always helps to have several works in various stages of completion. I use a brush to draw with paint directly onto the canvas and have also drawn small sketches of the flowers and weeds in my tiny backyard. There is renewable inspiration in the shapes of the houses, trees, and sky visible from my studio window. In the studio I have plants, dead branches, and fake flowers—all these appear as the colors, shapes, and lines in my paintings. Rather than accurately depicting a specific place or object, my goal is to paint what I subconsciously yearn to see while creating the elusive psychological calm I want to be enveloped within. A landscape painter friend of mine once described how, after her husband unexpectedly died, she woke every morning feeling peaceful. Yet, a nanosecond later she’d remember he was gone and then she’d burst into tears. It was only after she died that I began to see the beautifully idyllic landscapes she painted at the end of her life as her own attempt to permanently capture the brief hopeful waking moment. Like many artists I know, contrary to how deeply sad she felt, her paintings exuded a buoyant pleasure. I hope I too can create a similar and equally believable moment of pleasure.”
— Bill Scott
Bill Scott began his career studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1974 to 1979 but considers longer periods of working informally with painters Jane Piper and Joan Mitchell as the pivotal influences of his practice.
Noted Exhibitions
Swarthmore College
Hollins University
State Museum of Pennsylvania
National Academy Museum
University of Delaware
Selected Public Collections
Cleveland Museum of Art
Delaware Art Museum
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Museum of Art
Woodmere Art Museum.
24 x 24 inches
Flowers for Patrick, 2022
Oil on canvas
Bas-relief I, 2021
Oil on canvas
29 x 27 inches
An Irretrievable Pleasure, 2021
Oil on canvas
32 x 46 inches
Bas-relief II, 2022
Oil on canvas
34 x 34 inches
A Recurrent Memory, 2022
Oil on linen on Alucobond panel, 36 x 42 inches
Winter Flowers, 2016
reworked in 2023
Oil on canvas
43 x 39 inches
Half a World Away, 2022
Oil on canvas
60 x 72 inches
Perennials III, 2017 Oil on canvas 16 x 12 inches
Running between Weeds, 2017
reworked in 2023
Oil on canvas
16 x 16 inches
Oil on canvas
11 x 14 inches
Oil on canvas
12 x 16 inches
A Flower for You II, 2023
The Third Week of Spring, 2022
Oil on canvas
9 x 12 inches
Oil on canvas
11 x 14 inches
Wallflower, 2023 A Flower for You I, 2022Running between Weeds, 2017 reworked in 2023
Oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches
A Bright Blue Sky, 2023 Oil on canvas 40 x 44 inches
A Hopeful Gesture, 2023 Oil on canvas 40 x 48 inches
Songbird, 2023 Oil on canvas 36 x 30 inches
