By Bonnie Gangelhoff
Richard T. Scott, Nicole’s Room, oil, 16 x 19.
ART EDUCATION: Master’s of fine arts from the New York Academy of Art in New York City. Afterwards I was honored with a residency with the brilliant Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum in Norway and at his summer home in Paris.
STYLE: I consider myself something of a magical realist working with an open narrative. I’m very influenced by the writer Jorge Luis Borges. What I love about his short stories is how he begins with a completely believable scenario, and somewhere along the way he introduces impossible elements and philosophical ideas that completely bend reality in a beautiful, poetic fashion.
MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT THE WAY YOU WORK: I always paint in the nude. Just joking! But seriously, I work primarily from life, though the painting is never solely a direct copy of what I see.
SECOND-CHOICE CAREER: Writer, musician, or winemaker.
BEST ADVICE RECEIVED: A quote by Howard Thurman: Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
CREATIVE SPARK: Everything. I could be inspired by a certain phrase of music and listen to it two dozen times. Or I might see the play of light in the trees, the silhouette of leaves drifting in the breeze, or the long, fragile trail of a plane stretching across the sky at the perfect angle.
FUTURE GOALS: I would love to exhibit in a museum, which actually might be right around the corner.
PRICE RANGE: $250 to $20,000.
REPRESENTATION: Gitana Rosa Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Galerie Francis Barlier, Paris, France; Galleri Pan, Oslo, Norway; www.richardtscottart.com.
Featured in our annual “21 Under 31” issue in September 2010