John Scott: Avatar

John Scott was one of Canadian art’s most incendiary artistic talents. He tackled difficult subjects of politics and war with a disarming and witty approach that resonated on a universal level. His innate understanding and compassion for the human condition, especially its fragility often disguised as blatant machismo, lent his work an air of clairvoyance and timelessness. Given the state of current affairs, Scott’s voice is now more relevant than ever. 

 Avatar highlights several of Scott’s most iconic paintings and drawings from various periods throughout our time working with Scott from 2004 until 2022.  Large-format canvases that were discovered in his studio only recently will be on view alongside seminal drawings. These works grapple with complex themes using his original and inventive characters, namely the hybrid bunny-human and the Dark Commander. The Dark Commander, a menacing figure representing authoritarian power, is often likened to Napoleon while the hybrid bunny-human is seen in many scenarios and in many people including Iron Mike, or Mike Tyson.

“It is both a sign of the artist’s prodigious talent and an indictment of our ceaseless tolerance for war that any of John Scott’s works from the past four decades could have been made next year.”

 

- Daniel Strong, Associate Director and Curator of Exhibitions, Grinnell College Museum of Art, Iowa, USA. From Dark Commander: The Art of John Scott, a catalogue for the Grinnell College Museum of Art