60x48 inches, acrylic on canvas
Scott Gregory is a formalist, his paintings find life in the compositional elements of colour, line, shape and texture. Born in Windsor, Ontario, he graduated from the University of Windsor with a B.A. in 1971. He then completed Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1973, with fellow students, artists Adรจle Duck, Brian Brown, Tony Calzetta, Susan O’Neill and Andrea Bolley. Under the tutelage of Professor Ruth Rattner, Gregory studied the Fauvists and felt an immediate affinity with their wild, vibrant style of expression and use of intense colour. Gregory also studied with the Michigan sculptor Glen Michaels with whom he created a fifty-six panel mural of cast bronze, wood and tile that adorns the central hall of the Comerica Park building in downtown Detroit. In 1984, Scott Gregory was one of the three artists selected to represent Canada at the ”Art Today – Sapporo Triennale” exhibition at the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art in Sapporo, Japan. The following year he was invited to attend an international exhibition in Seoul, Korea. In 1998, Gregory began the series, primarily on paper, that he continues to paint today. He begins by stretching the paper, staining the ground and sealing it with a liquid acrylic gel. Using a 6B drawing pencil he creates a drawing for the forms of paint to occupy. He adds tinted matt medium in hues of deep burgundies, purples, acid greens and yellows to the drawings and works the medium with putty and palette knives, spoons, forks, chopsticks, chisels and window screen-carving into the paint. The tools are chosen for the formal qualities of colour, texture and pattern which they impart. These expressive, heavily worked surfaces are controlled. Gregory will often add a fragment of dried acrylic to a work to act as a visual stop or anchor. Gregory has said that the paint and the surface inform if you’re available to see, to listen and make choices. Scott Gregory has received numerous awards and grants for his painting, including Ontario Arts Council grants. His work has been shown in several public art galleries and Museums in Canada and abroad and is included in such prominent collections as the Canada Council Art Bank in Ottawa and the Art Gallery of Windsor.
