Scott Indrisek

Scott's droll wit as well as the playful and kinetic way in which he references pop culture reminds me of Fischli/Weiss. Like the Swiss duo, his allusions to everyday vernacular are contemplative and subdued. The graphically appealing image of what would otherwise be a discarded object, also seems to be mischievously poking fun at the oft-quoted structure of the grid.

Scott's paintings share the intimate scale of books and reflect Scott's background in literature. His diptych simultaneously reiterates the inherent physicality of both the novel and the adjoined paintings. It made me think of Camille Paglia's belief in the physical concreteness of text, to her, "text exists as an object; it is not just a mist of ephemeral subjectivities." It's always difficult to discern between when Paglia is being bombastic, and if she is being sincere, but between all the grating bravado she does have moments of brilliance. Although dismissing subjective experience is completely ludicrous, the idea of thinking of text as a physical entity is fantastic!

The intimacy of the scale accentuates the private and intriguingly enigmatic quality of Scott's paintings. There's a seductive aspect in the richness of the paintings' tactile surface, and a compelling tension that exists between the abstracted and illusionistic space.

I love Scott's painting within a painting!! The tenderly painted monochrome on the left side of the canvas pays homage to a painting that Scott's father made. The strong personal element that is present within all of Scott's paintings emanates an aura of emotional complexity and depth.

Scott also keeps several blogs in which his deliciously biting satire debunks the absurdities and power dynamics in the art village. The hilarity in much of Scott's writing relies on replacing words that have become ubiquitous and generalized, with descriptions that expand meaning with exactitude and precision. When Scott refers to Jeff Koons as an industrial fabricating tycoon, in his blog, Brant Watch, he gives a more incisive and accurate depiction of what it is that Koons represents rather than if he were to refer to Koons simply as an artist!

Satire and caricature have always shared a common language, and Brant Watch is reminiscent of George Grosz's scathing portrayals of society. Although our situation isn't nearly as dire as what was happening during the Weimar Republic, our unpromising current climate is a stark contrast to the economic prosperity during the Clinton administration. Especially as technology replaces people in the workforce, the middle class continues to be eradicated, and the dollar consistently loses its value, not only does it seem unlikely that the economy will ever recover even closely to what it once was, but the widening of the economic gap becomes even more conspicuous than ever, making Brant Watch especially timely.

http://brantwatch.com

http://shitmycatsread.com