The next Artist You Need To Know is Scott Sawtell.
Sawtell is a Canadian artist, teacher and curator who currently lives and makes his work in Newmarket, Ontario. For more than two decades Sawtell has been a prolific artist, whose work often straddles abstraction and symbolism, and the manner in which he applies paint means that repeated visits with his work may reveal aspects you missed previously.
He has said that likes to “create paintings that ignite something within and speak about his shared humanity spinning in space with everyone else.”
From the exhibition text for his solo show Scott Sawtell: Right Before Your Eyes (2021) : “The juxtaposition between angular lines and organics nature produces a simultaneous break down and rebuilding of creative energy. In doing so, his artwork continually shifts and unfolds in front of the viewer, encouraging deeper engagement.”
Sawtell graduated from the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD, 2000) and earned an MFA from the University of Waterloo (2002). He has exhibited his work across Canada and the United States : notable exhibitions have taken place at the Orillia Museum of Art and History, B Contemporary, Aurora Cultural Centre and Latcham Art Centre. Sawtell has also curated exhibitions for the Town of Newmarket, the City of Kitchener and Humber College.
He has also taught at a number of institutions : these include the Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD), Georgian College (Barrie, ON) and Brock University (St. Catharines, ON).
“My paintings change so much overtime as I’m not working with them continuously and sometimes I take a few years because I am constantly revisiting them at different periods. This is purposeful because I want them to have a sense of history and philosophically I am interested in in the fact that it becomes almost a diary of all these different experiences in one image. I let the painting continually change from what I am seeing every day.”
The works below are from the series Animal Paintings (2014 – 2016).
“Other than the incorporation of abstraction into realism, I’ve always tried to put different elements together and I think I may be a maximalist in the way that I paint. I’m interested in the idea of mash-up culture, or taking all these different images and combining them until they feel cohesive.”
Sawtell’s practice is intense and he’s an exceptionally productive artists : he has an extensive site with many more of his works – and with some engaging writing about his artworks and his approach to image making – which you can see here.
He was also featured in a Curator’s Pick from the online magazine curated. A page dedicated to a past exhibition of Sawtell’s work can be seen here and it offers some wonderful installation shots of the show that highlight the size and power of his paintings.
Much more about his art and ideas can be enjoyed here.