Following his recent exhibition at Fonderie Darling, Walter Scott presents Two Things Can Be True, a series of paintings that delve into the psychological and symbolic complexities surrounding the act of making.
The seven works installed in the gallery space continue an ongoing inquiry in which Scott’s visual language merges text-based practices and abstraction. This exhibition follows A Shape in the Living World, his first solo show composed entirely of paintings, presented at Hunt Gallery in Toronto last February.
In Two Things Can Be True, certain codes drawn from comics are reactivated: borders and the laconic sequential markers “SO” and “THEN” are integrated into sparse, distilled compositions. The works at times depict austere liminal spaces, at others isolated objects. Post-it notes, echoing fragments of thought, recall scraps of paper found in the artist’s studio, bringing us toward a form of emotional interiority. Vases, wine glasses, pools of dark liquid, and other iconographic elements compose a set of speculative images, often devoid of human presence. Wendy, a central figure in his universe, is absent here, yet her system of signs continues to permeate the works. Her presence instead resides in the multiple meta-layers of the formal structure.
In the work THEN, she appears as a sketch reproduced on an image of a sheet of paper, “attached” to the canvas with a piece of tape rendered in acrylic. This mode of representation complicates the otherwise direct experience of Wendy as a comic character on paper. Here, her presence is mediated through multiple layers of formal distancing, highlighting the discomfort and complexity of her status as a commodity within the contemporary art world in the context of this exhibition.
Language continues to occupy a central role in Scott’s practice. Wordplay, double entendres, and forms akin to verbal puzzles are often imbued with a dark and critical humor, introducing an additional layer of interpretation. Meaning thus emerges through slippages between words and images, without ever becoming fixed.
The canvases function as representations of themselves, once detached from reality. They are images of images, reflecting a form of self-awareness within the works. They operate within the fiction of the art world that we collectively continue to construct. While the installation of the paintings in space loosely evokes a narrative structure, the ensemble is freed from the sequential logic of comics. The experience of the works in person is essential: their scale and material presence significantly alter perception and interpretation. Here, a narrative in constant transformation unfolds under the viewer’s gaze. The works evolve in a manner akin to our fluctuating psychological states, which continually prompt us to revisit and reinterpret our memories, traumas, and emotional responses to life events.
Biography
Walter Scott b. 1985, is an interdisciplinary artist working across comics, drawing, video, and installation. His comic series, Wendy, chronicles the continuing misadventures of a young artist in a satirical version of the contemporary art world. Wendy has been featured in Art in America, ArtReview, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Recent exhibitions include heavily Greebled, Darling Foundry (Montreal), and A Shape in the Living World, Hunt Gallery, Toronto. His short film, Organza’s Revenge, has recently screened at festivals internationally and won the Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award at the InsideOut film festival in Toronto. His most recent graphic novel, The Wendy Award, is now available from Drawn & Quarterly.
