It must be exhilarating to be F. Scott Hess. The works that comprise his Los Angeles exhibition In Transit demonstrate that Hess has reached the point where his brush can take him just about anywhere he wants to go. The varied subjects, and hybrid realities of Hess' recent paintings make them appear eclectic when seen together, but that just scratches the surface. His works actually have a tremendous psychological unity. They have sprung from the mind of an artist who is recycling and blending the richness of his actual life and infusing it with cultural memory and imaginative vigor.
In the past year or two Hess has dredged up references -- consciously and unconsciously -- from the Bible, Velasquez, Persian poetry, Bellini, Watteau, Sigmund Freud, the experiences of child-rearing, and the experience of being a child. Somehow, all of these things have been internalized, even sorted. "I generally just paint what I see when I'm not looking," Hess comments.
"Art history, popular culture, literature, and the subconscious all simmer together in Scott's skull," observes his friend and fellow artist Peter Zokosky. "Scott's mental salad bar has more choices than anyone's, and he always comes away with something amazing." The mental salad bar that Zokosky refers to is also well stocked with life experiences and travel.
"In Transit" will be the artist's first solo show in Los Angeles in eight years, and his first ever with Koplin Del Rio. The show will include over a dozen recent paintings; including an epic 7 x 12 foot canvas that Hess will complete while the exhibit is on display. The title work, In Transit, will arrive at the gallery in progress and will be painted by Hess at regular hours in the gallery through November and December.
A live video stream of Hess at work in the gallery will be available for viewing via Koplin Del Rio's website.
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His "Self Portrait As A Masterpiece Of Creation" features the naked artist standing behind a blank canvas surrounded by other self portraits by Frida Kahlo, Lucian Freud (leering at the artist's backside), a Max Beckmann poster, an apparent sonogram of a fetus and --a Confederate officer's uniform? "Tremendous psychological unity" for some I guess.
Hess seems a skilled, rather imaginative painter.. but so are a lot of people. Still, I give him credit for his artistic rigor and for giving a damn about his profession. But if one "has reached the point where his brush can take him just about anywhere he wants to go"... we must assume this is it (for now).
I was trying to say that the works in his new exhibition, seen together, have psychological unity. Regarding the Self-Portrait, here is something I wrote for the catalog: In his “Self-Portrait as a Masterpiece of Creation,” Hess plays fair by posing nude himself behind the verso of a blank canvas. Lucien Freud and Frida Kahlo, present in the form of reproductions of their self-portraits, provide additional fuel for the theme of artist’s using the self-portrait as a vehicle for the insecurities of both the artist and the viewer. Hess is interested in Lacanian Gaze, the idea of a painting being a mirror that reflects back the viewer's own thoughts, and elicits the anxious realization that he or she can also be viewed. “In a way,” he says “I think the blank panel represents that, and also a deliberate lack of guidance on my part.”