Notes of Persistent Awe
Columns by Benjamin Terrell
2/1/2023 3 Comments #15: 2/1/2023On the Work of Scott Beck by Benjamin Terrell Untitled 2022, acrylic on canvas, 8" x 10" Two men stand at the edge of a great lake, both in suits, wearing hats- one flat and one rounded. Seen together they are logic and intuition, priest and banker, ego and humility and both calmly watch something big and unknown burn in the near distance. Do they stare into the recent past or are they focused on a forthcoming future prophecy, some sepia soothsaying dawning or dimming like embers in between warming and warning? The cool grey calm of the picture plane is owed to an oval 8-bit glow, like an analog television, in awkward authority retro rattling both Nintendo and Nostradamus. Television programing of a certain era (and a painting reminiscent of that era) evokes endless reruns and reminds us that repeated information is often perceived as more truthful than new information. This is both comforting and unsettling- ours is the era of falsehood and fact checking and we waiver on cracks and over chasms of instability in a late-stage information age. That man on the left of the painting with his hands in his pockets- that's me, and his friend, the one looking, hand blocking the sun to see- that is you, reader, and together we teeter in a theatre with only two seats, for this is the brink and beginning of a new nameless age. Untitled 2022, acrylic on canvas, 8" x 10" In 1986, poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote that the poetry of the future will serve "...the sublime needs of the spirit, and our duality will find its form in it, without renouncing one zone or the other." Painter Scott Beck is both poet and cinematographer of canvas in scope and substance, reliably balancing between dichotomies depicting the awkward center-space where actual life unfolds. Beck's world is all at once: happy/sad, serious/humorous, subtle/obvious, tragic/cheerful. In not over-describing either extreme, his work remains fresh and full of possibility, something missing from the media he artistically borrows from. A painting by Beck can balance subject and spatial ambiguity with direct linearity like the best yet to be captioned New Yorker cartoon. Not to imply anything in the artist's world is punchline driven. Quite the opposite- unique is Beck's ability to stop a story from unfolding and is more similar to a stolen glance or the way a frozen and flickering frame of an old movie might make you re-question the story line or even the storyteller. The artist does for painting what Instagram did for images, separating context from content in a mysterious and digestible (although insatiable) way. A man and woman relax before a grand fireplace, an image perhaps taken from an old television drama, which would normally appear ubiquitous, yet here feels out of step. The contents of the room are built of squares above the male figure's head, as if everything is entirely a cinematic thought bubble or a painted backdrop within a painting pointing to the man's hands, one coffee confident and one opening to uncertainty at the edge of the picture. As if, what may have traditionally been of importance now becomes as ornate and obsolete as the fixtures on the mantle, similar to the way social media pushes aside a participant in favor of a few familiar false perceptions. When we share or even stream anything we trade the breadth of our actual lives for something compressed and digitally deceptive, and we become the antiques of our own expression. Beck's creative commentary is similar to painter Norbert Schwontowski's- an empty picture plane is filled only until it utters one of a handful of empirical questions. And perhaps Beck observes like painter Walter Swennen- "Just as fish swim in the sea, poets (and painters) move about in nostalgia," as if to also say, wistfulness colors the waters through which we must both see and swim. Untitled 2022, acrylic on canvas, 8" x 10" Author and anthropologist Gregory Bateson, in writing about resolving creative contradiction, states- "For others,more creative, the resolution of contraries reveals a world in which personal identity merges into all the processes of relationship in some vast ecology or aesthetics of cosmic interaction. That any of these can survive seems almost miraculous, but some are perhaps saved from being swept away on oceanic feeling by their ability to focus in on the minutiae of life. Every detail of the universe is seen as proposing a view of the whole." Scott Beck's world often feels kept one frame away from resolution, as if the artist isn't interested in beginnings or endings, but in savoring the middle median required to ask the question, what is to be done with what cannot be named? Bateson also observed, "The world of form and communication invokes no things, only differences and ideas," similar is the way Beck beckons just shy of a story. A cowboy sitting on the edge of a bed putting on socks and boots while a small dog watches is an idea evaporating on the outer edge of a narrative. He prepares for a day that will never happen, existing in anticipation only, tender, masculine and minus a sunset to ride off into. Bateson has also stated that, art often doesn't know its problems until after they have been solved, as if to also imply, denied its story, art holds entirely to its potential. For Scott Beck, life is not a stage but more closely comparable to a proscenium- the arch (actual or implied) that separates action from an auditorium audience. He paints not performer nor patron but the odd wind that is whistled prior to a performance. However, some of the artist's work does feel like we've walked in mid-presentation. Beck's works are all untitled, observed here are actions alone- a man discreetly divulges something to a couple seated on a couch, three women share secrets while sitting a living room floor, a mustached man with bandages over his eyes is embraced, an elderly couple in an office anticipate someone's entrance, observed from outside the room, two people play chess, they melt and merge mid canvas, swallowed by tall paneled walls, as if painted isn't a subject or storyline, but a pinhole through which details deconstruct and dissolve. These are the unwieldy intimacies of something ineffable, yet humorous. We build and rebuild our "selves" like sandcastles only to have life (like surf does to sand) repeatedly wash them away. Untitled 2022, acrylic on canvas, 8" x 10" Three men with cowboy hats have tea, two wear guns and all are concerned with something outside the picture plane. Beck paints both figures and fragments of a room with thin red (James) Thurber lines, balancing between comic book and cinema. Paintings utilizing cartoon imagery are often reminiscent of the resilient redefining found in the later work of painter Philip Guston. Our journeys frequently end where they begin and to journey before digital connection was something inherently more personal and private. Beck's world is reminiscent of all things experienced before devices were designed to follow, feed, share and spy. To be connected to the contemporary is also to be marooned on a beach with no island, too frequently we find ourselves stranded in spaceless virtual worlds. Consequently, Beck's transcendence is the comfort in which his painting's subjects feel planted in the most fragile of vases, as if to acknowledge- the strongest and most reassuring of truths can come from the most delicate of forms and expressions. A woman sits on a sofa that is longer than average, other details are lengthened too, like her arm and the height a picture hangs on the back wall. Yet the stairs behind that end where the subject's head is centered are low, as if to climb them wouldn't lead up or out but back into the shallow space where she is seated. Flanked and grounded by either rounded edge of the empty couch, the woman appears to have the weight of wings unaccustomed to flying. Seen in an era of online interaction, she is reminiscent of the freshly distant and unoccupied spaces that we once gathered. She, like us, is a bee born to a hive of unknown order. As I write this, I too am alone in a room and maybe you as well now inhabit your daily space as if it was a new forest attached to an empty field. Yesterday, on a morning walk one hundred geese flew close overhead and I resisted the urge to record or share it. The sounds of hundreds of wings like an entire library of book pages being turned at one time. One moment self-conscious, the next moment self-aware, we trot into the forest and run back franticly through the field. Scott Beck paints the patch of grass where we pass between the two. Scott Beck's work will be on view at One Wall Gallery in Eugene, OR from February 3rd - March 31st (@one.wall.gallery on instagram) You can see more of his work on instagram: @scottbeckart A Short biography of Scott Beck: Born 1963, Detroit,Michigan Lives and works in Montclair, NJ Studied painting at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit Had his first group show in 2022 at 57W57Arts, New York, NY You can see more of Benjamin Terrells work on instagram @benjamin_terrell_painting
3 Comments
2/5/2023 11:19:57 am
You are extraordinary talented. If you are writing a book, please let us know. Enjoy how your mind works!
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Benjamin C Terrell
2/7/2023 09:53:58 am
Thank you for the kind words! Would love to talk more, when you have time.
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10/19/2023 03:44:54 am
Benjamin Terrell's insightful commentary on the work of Scott Beck offers a valuable perspective on an artist whose contributions to their respective field are often overshadowed. Terrell's analysis sheds light on Beck's unique approach and creative prowess, inviting readers to appreciate the depth and nuance of Beck's work. This piece serves as a compelling testament to the importance of recognizing and celebrating lesser-known talents in the art world.
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