Scott Elk
Untitled Studio Work, 2023
Mixed media on canvas
85cm x 120cm

Making a start on a new series of works, focusing on composition and developing painting techniques

DUSK + DUST:
The Denouement - Drawing Together the Strands of Grief.

This series focuses on using grief as a conceptual framework to explore composition as a foundation for strong image making within the context of abstract expressionism; in this regard, the interactions between various art forms are fundamental to my process.

Dusk. The end of the day. The closing. That brief time of the day when everything is glowing orange. The Golden Hour. That moment before darkness.

Dust. Ashes. Elemental matter. A solid that can be easily taken and disseminated by the wind, scattered, blown apart, lost. A returning to the earth. Earth. Death.

Denouement. The final part of a play, film, or narrative in which the strands of the plot are drawn together, and matters are explained or resolved. Derived from Latin denouement literally means to “untie the knot,” which refers to the narrative entanglements the author has woven through the first four stages of plot development. The denouement always occurs after the climax, in the final part of a story's narrative arc.

I intend this developing series to be an immersive and multidisciplinary exploration of loss and grief, which will meander around objects, float off walls, and atmospherically fill the spaces between with sound, as symbiotic and sympathetic shapes draw the eye and echo form, while heavy, black ceramics objects visually vibrate transcending physicality, leaving traces of fragmented impressions through prints on paper, and monumentally sized canvas wall works.