Scott Avett opened his inaugural exhibition at SOCO Gallery, In The Light of Unlearning, Wednesday, January 22nd. The show, featuring original works from the artist, will run through Friday, March 6th, 2020.
Scott Avett is a multimedia artist whose figurative works explore beautiful phases and moments in time. His process blends materials and techniques used in screen printing, block printing, and painting, producing richly textured, intimate portraits of those closest to him.
“I really love it whenever somebody says something regarding how they relate to the work and they’re dialed into it directly… there’s no ‘me’ anymore in it; to them, it’s them,” Scott shared Tuesday night, as he prepared to open the show to the public alongside gallery owner Chandra Johnson.
Drawing inspiration from literature, his spiritual roots, musical upbringing, and heritage, Avett archives and preserves shared human experiences and life cycles that emerge from his own life. The artists’ journals, specifically sketchbooks and sketches from the road and at home, are the launching off point for his work included in In the Light of Unlearning.
Avett received his BFA in Painting from East Carolina University and has exhibited his work in New York, Southampton, and Charlotte, among other cities. Avett has been a member of The Avett Brothers band since he founded the group in 2000 along with his brother Seth. He currently lives and works in Concord, North Carolina.
Asked about how he prepared for this show, soon on the heels of his fall exhibit at NCMA, Scott said, “The process is super cyclical, and super seasonal. Our touring schedule dictates a little bit of how busy I can get in the studio… but this is all part of this whole unlearning, this whole surrender. Maybe it is time now to surrender to process, and to the mundane.”
Amongst his paintings and screenprints, SOCO will also display replicas of actual journal pages of Scott’s. “There’s thousands of them,” he says. “But it’s interesting to go back and see these things that don’t make a lot of sense, though they must have at one point…”
Scott’s work is sometimes abstract, like his journal excerpts, but often they are figurative, playing with faces, features, and movement.
While Scott says he has “no way to know how to describe” his particular style, many of the same themes (love and longing, contemporary life, spirituality) that capture his imagination in writing lyrics surface in the paintings and prints, too.
The native North Carolinian is strongly embedded in the arts community here, and there is no more fitting place for his work to land than with SOCO.
“All of my creative beginnings were formed in Charlotte, and all my first gallery experiences were over in North Davidson. I set up a little studio and I used to paint portraits in Concord. Today, SOCO is an international gallery and it’s wonderful. I’m really proud to be a part of it. It’s everything it’s supposed to be and needs to be.”
I feel at home… I am.
For more information on the Scott Avett SOCO Gallery show, visit soco-gallery.com
