Amanta Scott, 40 x 60 inches, encaustic on canvas on panel, Perceptions series II, 2020
Donde Hay Humo (Where There's Smoke) speaks to our uneasy situation today in which — while many wrestle with the isolation imposed by the global pandemic (how do each of us chose to deal with it?) — at the same time the world around us is in upheaval: fires rage; smoke clogs the skies; and protests for life, liberty, respect, dignity and freedom of choice are waged between warring factions of left and right. What path do we choose for the future of ourselves and the planet?
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 36 x 48 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2015
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 36 x 36 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2013, in private collection: Toronto, ON
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 40 x 40 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2018, in private collection, Toronto
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 30 x 30 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2018
Tom's Swamp is an intervention with Tom Thomson’s painting, Northern River, currently in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Thomson often referred to this work as his "swamp painting.”
Having spent my childhood in the cottage owned by a park ranger and friend of Tom Thomson, I grew up hearing stories of Thomson's mysterious death, contemplating his iconic images of Canada. However, as one who has travelled extensively, I have long wrestled with Canada's global image on the world stage as peaceful, inoffensive, democratic and kind; with vast areas of nature devoid of human intervention— an image maintained in part by the popularity of the Group of Seven. In reality, Canada is the ancestral territory of the original people of this land, living here since time immemorial. Here, Indigenous children were “abused, physically and sexually, and they died in the schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in any school system anywhere in the country, or in the world.” — TRC report. Finally the country is becoming aware of the horrors perpetrated upon these people, acknowledging the unmarked graves of former residential school students. The country is grieving, the traumas of Indigenous people, so long suppressed, are now coming to the surface. Finally I hope people are starting to listen to the truth.
While creating this painting I was thinking about Canada's history of systematic racism and the genocide perpetrated upon the Indigenous people; about the imprisonment of Japanese people during WWII; about the discrimination and abuse endured by the Chinese immigrants who built the Canadian railway; and about the disproportionate number of Black and Indigenous people filling Canadian jails. Since the trees in Thomson's original work reminded me of prison bars, I invaded his work and our pristine Canadian image by inserting a photo of myself on a prison bed with the prison issue suitcase, in the midst of a recreation of Thomson's iconic painting.
I am reminded of a time when I was on a bus in Germany. As we drove past a concentration camp, seeing how close it was to the street, I asked an older woman sitting next to me: “How they could have let this happen?” She replied: ”They were prisoners, we thought they must have done something wrong." Years later my mother told me of growing up in Brandon Manitoba. One day she saw a group of Indigenous children walking to town, coming from the local residential school. She described them as a solemn and serious, quite unlike other children of that age. She asked her aunt why they were like that and her aunt responded that they were dangerous and to stay away. My mother told me that at the time she accepted that answer unquestioningly.
I feel we Canadians have imprisoned ourselves with our own perceptions and self delusions of who we are as a country. The past can no longer be whitewashed. We can no longer say we didn't know.
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 40 x 60 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2017
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 36 x 48 x 1.75 in., Perceptions series, 2015
The painting depicts a figure (myself) in a cemetery, seated upon a reclaimed prison bed beside a standard-issue prison suitcase, contemplating a vision in the distance. In this work I play with the references to the white photo corners, exploring alternate cropping, alternate choices, indicating the variable edges of the photo...
While creating this work I was caring for and helping a friend pass over from life to death, wrestling with his own perceptions of himself as a man and a father and the choices he had made along the way. I have helped many people through the death process and find it an intensely spiritual experience.
I have also been puzzled, if not amused, how so many ministers, pastors and priests seem so out of their depth when dealing with death. Having spent many years working as an organist and choral director, essentially the pagan in the pulpit, I have been the sounding board for many a minister. So many of them find themselves at a loss for how to cope with death. I am lucky, having been raised to respect all faiths and seek unity in our diversity— a phrase my grandfather, the British composer, Cyril Scott, had carved upon his tombstone.
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 40 x 40 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2013
Here I play again with the memento mori idea, using the mirror ball and cow skull. Little did I know at the time of creating the photo for the painting that for me the work would come to represent the sheer joy and delight I shared with my dear departed friend Joe. I love the absurdity of the work. The actual photograph did include an enormous yellow plant in the foreground, completely diminishing the human figure in the background... and that speaks to me of the power of nature, life and death. To me the minimal photo corner conveys the impression of light on the edge of a window inviting the viewer to step out from the darkness into the light. It brings me joy.
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 30 x 30 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2013
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 30 x 30 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2009, in private collection: Toronto
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 36 x 36 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2009, in private collection, Hong Kong
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 30 x 36 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2013
Here the white corner frames are warped and distorted; just as our perceptions can be warped and distorted by trauma. The ancestors, society or community (perhaps those on the wall of the garage behind the central figure) may point the way, or argue amongst themselves... while we (and the figure) may or may not be capable of seeing it.
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 24 x 36 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2009
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 24 x 30 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2013
For this painting, I took the prison bed and standard-issue suitcase into a graffiti painted laneway. The photo was then mounted on the birch panel and overpainted with encaustic — changing much of the graffiti and surrounding details, blurring the lines between the reality depicted in the photo and the imagined reality of the painting.
White corners reference the way photos were mounted in old photo albums, and the framing of our angle of perception of reality.
I was thinking about my cousin, who as a teenager had spent sometime in prostitution. Adopted from a rat-infested orphanage in Trinidad she was raised in the home of a German poet and intellectual in Montreal. Rebelling against her adopted father's complicated affair with another woman, she left home at an early age. Trouble ensued and she ended up in in Toronto— where she was found during a police raid on a gang rape.
Speaking to me of her experiences, she said it was very different to have sex with someone you loved.
I discovered she was right.
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 24 x 36 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2009
This work, and several others in the Water group of this series, is dedicated to the memory of my friend Joe, a brilliant man who disappeared at the time I was painting these works, and whose body was later found floating in the water just beyond where the figure is located in the painting. We searched for him for weeks. Police found he had tied his hands, filled a knapsack with tins and drowned himself in despair, suffering from a psychotic episode of paranoia and probable, undiagnosed, schizophrenia.
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 24 x 36 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2009, in private collection: Toronto, ON
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 24 x 36 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2013
The almost Celtic design of the photo corners alludes to the greater spirituality I find in nature.
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 36 x 40 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2015
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 36 x 40 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2009
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 30 x 36 x 1.75 inches, Perceptions series, 2009
I imagined being imprisoned, as so many I know have been, for so many different reasons: in concentration camps, prisons, residential schools, wars... so many people held and seized against their will.
Again: a woman on a bed, clothed, and this time: agitated. My answer to the art world.
In this work I aimed to push the boundaries of perception, where do the bricks in the walls or in our minds begin or end? A frame within a frame, echoed even in our baggage, the ever-present suitcase.
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 30 x 24 x 1.75 inches., Perceptions series, 2009, in private collection: Toronto
Amanta Scott, encaustic mixed media on birch panel, 32 x 30 x 1.5 inches, Perceptions series, 2008, Best in Show Award: Touched By Fire Juried Art Exhibition