Basketball, 2017, oil on panel, 36"x48" O'Neil Scott was born in Philadelphia and is a self-taught portrait artist. In school, he was always fascinated with art and drawing people, both real and fictional. However, when he got to college, he was awarded a scholarship for football and could not continue his studio education as he had to focus on practice. He first attended Syracuse University, where he played football and majored in information technology. He later earned his MBA at University of Delaware, but he still did art in his free time, never losing passion for painting to express himself. Originally, he used acrylic paints to create his portraits, but a few years ago he started to expeiment with oil paints, which he was taken by and started painting more often. His paintings are inspired by and portray issues that Scott holds close to his heart, such as social justice, climate change, police brutality and the Black Lives Matter movement. His work is meant to inspire change and provoke mindfulness for the situations that have terrorized our country for many years. "Injustice for some Americans is an injustice for all Americans." I really like the subject of Scott's paintings as well as the realism in the textures of the skin and hair. In his painting "Favors the Bold", the woman's arms almost look like they were photographed, with details like the veins and the hair on the arms so intricately ad accurately painted on. All of Scott's paintings have lots of different values and contrast in lighting that really make the figures and their expressions stand out. I have been trying to work on my skills with both photographing figures with great contrast in values and painting these values more realistically, so looking at Scott's paintings is very inspiring, especially knowing he is self-taught in the subject. Links: Gallery Website More Work This lecture was very interesting and it covered a lot of very helpful information that I feel like I will carry with me in almost all aspects of my life. The concepts of Wabi, Sabi, and Yugen were interesting to learn about and I really love these ideas behind the subject of beauty. I am very excited to see how I might incorporate them in my future artwork as well as my life in general. What I found to be the most interesting concept of the three was the idea of Sabi. I like the idea of a lonely beauty, characterized by melancholy. The thought that there is beauty in fleeting emotions and impermanent ideas is something I totally understand and I think it would be interesting to incorporate this into art somehow. Another part of the lecture that I really enjoyed learning about was the book "In Praise of Shadows" by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki. I have read a few pages of the book since hearing about it and I really enjoyed it. The concepts of beauty being found in shadows, literally and figuratively is something that I think would be interesting to explore artistically. I would love to find out more about the Japanese aesthetic and continue to read the book because I think that the ideas presented in the lecture are something I can both relate to and want to further understand.
I took a very low quality process video of my at home project just for fun! I am not sure if I'm completely finished with the project yet as I feel like it's missing something (and not just the wheels :)).
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AuthorHello! I am Isabel Martin and I am an art student at Maggie L. Walker Governor School. Archives
May 2021
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