Scott Kahn
Scott Kahn’s is a fantasy painting. The artist creates landscapes, still-life, and portraits that incorporate a mixture of precise brushstrokes while utilizing sharp, juxtaposing perspectives, building dream-like overtones.
Kahn uses the traditional painting method in oil on linen. Slowly, he develops his concept with multiple layers of color and glazes. The final surface is plentiful, with nuances of depth and definite color.
Kahn’s is self-taught. After exploring abstraction, minimalism, and conceptual art, he developed a painting inspired by life. His scenes yet swerve into a surreal and mystic representation. His imagery is allegorical. Through his landscapes, the artist explores the mysteries of nature.
Kahn creates a path that unites figurative art and the psychic and emotional sphere. He completely immerses the viewer in inner exploration like an adventurer through the hidden spaces of the soul and the unconscious.
Through a mystical symbolism, the artist gives objects new meanings. However, the subject through which his research is best expressed is precisely the portrait.
Kahn sees portraiture as the most fertile area for his human research. In each portrait, the artist projects a part of our humanity in which the viewer recognizes himself. His portraits bear a sensitivity that displaces and conquers the audience simultaneously, with incredible strength.
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation awarded him both in 1986 and 1995.
His Berkshire Nightscape was exposed for three years at the American Embassy in Moscow. Moreover, Scott Kahn boasts a long exhibition history in the United States and abroad.
“I consider my work to be a visual diary, a record of my life, a reporting of the places and people I encounter. It is not easy to begin a painting, despite the variety and complexity of the world. It is important to me to have a reason to paint, for the impulse to be strong. If I do not feel compelled to work, how can I expect the viewer to respond to what I am reporting? If I am successful, hopefully, the painting will have depth, poetry, and honesty. The effect should be direct and clear. To achieve this result, a creative person calls upon every tool available to him: technical, emotional, intuitive, and intellectual. The act of creating, therefore, teaches us and reveals to us who we are and our relationship to life. This is why I paint.”
Scott Kahn