A master artist — no question about it

SHARON — “Sex, guns and Jesus.” 

That’s the answer. Here’s the question: “If I had to distill the essence of America for a French audience in a single phrase,  what would that phrase be?” 

Both question and answer are the musings of artist Richard Scott contemplating his upcoming show at Galerie L’Oeil du Prince in Paris next spring. They prompt me to wonder how I can distill the essence of Richard Scott for this article. Not in a phrase. That’s beyond possible for this complex, internationally acclaimed, figurative painter whose lush, observant, atmospheric oils and drawings are on view at the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon through Jan. 4. 

One of the first things Richard tells me as I sit in his Millerton studio is that on his last day as a high school senior, he witnessed a classroom shooting. He heard a pop and turned to the sound. The shooter, gun now pointed at Scott’s chest, looked directly in his eyes … then shot someone else. That image remained burned in his memory — through college, where he earned a BFA in painting at the University of Georgia; through grad school and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art. 

When the shootings at Sandy Hook happened, he tried to discuss it with fellow artists but found none for whom it had similar relevance. 

“Is it ultimately my responsibility?” he remembers asking himself. “Perhaps my painting should explore how the dynamics of American culture created this situation.” 

Questions! Scott’s work abounds with them. Questions asked but not answered. What is that intense woman staring at just over my shoulder? Who threw that chair caught in violent flight in a seemingly deserted room? A girl is walking toward me on a lonely beach, her hair and scarf blown by wind I can almost feel. She wants to tell me something. What? Why is the woman in the bathtub clothed in a diaphanous wrap? She’s looking at something — smoky, wispy and rising. Is it steam from the hot bath water … or a beckoning spirit? Is she trying to kill herself … or just washing her hair? 

Scott’s work is indebted to Odd Nerdrum, with whom he lived and studied in Paris. It also resonates with the compositions of Andrew Wyeth, the alienation of Edward Hopper, the mastery of light by Vermeer. 

But wait — what about “sex, guns, Jesus” … the school shooting … questions about America I used (I admit it) to entice you to read further. Yes. You’ll see some of that in the show. Particularly in the Revolutionary War paintings — of women with muskets dressed in period costumes —which contrast the past to the present. Not a hypothesis, says Scott. Another question.