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Artist's Statement

I have worked in fine arts from early childhood, I first began working in clay then expanded into painting and drawing. Later I studied at the University of Oregon and earned a Bachelor of Science and Fine Arts (Art History, Ceramics, and Pre-Med majors) at Portland State University. After graduating I worked in the graduate program at the Rhode Island School of Design. It was later, under the direction of such mentors as the artists Mel Katz and Laura Ross-Paul, that I began drawing the figure extensively.

While attending university as an undergrad I had also been studying quantum physics, and in a number of the books photographic images of the "tracks" left by the interactions of sub-atomic particles taken at large particle accelerator facilities inside 'bubble chambers' began to interest me. Studying those images brought the equations of quantum physics to life for me.

 

At RISD I spent evenings at a job in the RISD parking garage watching empty car stalls for serious cash in between classes, and reading geek magazines like the CERN Courier, Fermi Lab, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Stanford Linear Accelerator journals and newsletters, and books like the "Dancing Wu Li Masters", "The Tao of Physics", "Be Here Now", and sketching the rudimentary drawings that were later to become the Particle Track Series.

When I was at RISD I would journey up to Boston to MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies and Nicholas Negropante's "Media Lab" symposiums and meet with the professors and students working on projects.  That had a profound influence on my future directions. After school I had become a Advertising Creative Director all while asking myself 'how did I get here?' I then became interested in the fledgling computer/video game industry at it's nascent stages in 1985 and rode that carpet for 25 years working with Paul Allen's Starwave "wired and wireless worlds" in the early 90s and many major game development companies through to today's "apptomized" mobile connected mixed reality revolution, all while raising a family and gaining valuable business acumen as an executive and entrepreneur in the Seattle area.

So the Particle Track Series are based on the visual vocabulary left by the 'track' signatures from the collisions of sub-atomic particles. They became a metaphor for me, how the fabric of our human interactions in life were intertwined like the interwoven relationships of the interactions and energies of sub-atomic particles. In my work, the collisions and interactions of a color as it passes through it's journey across the page can be shocking, subtle, tranquil, nerve wracking, challenging, and as you see all of the colors and their journeys connect and interact with each other across the piece, following their individual and their collective interconnected stories, a more meditative state starts to occur inside the viewer and a more sublime experience of quantum reality starts to reveal itself. These pieces seem to be drawing themselves, and although one can discuss these works formally and have a rewarding time doing so, for me these pieces are absolutely and fundamentally developed with a vocabulary of their own design.  Using the areas of the brain referred to by Kandinsky and Jung as the spiritual centers, or the unconscious constructs, or more historically - the heart, these pieces emerge from the fabric of these energies.

After some major surgeries on an old college soccer injury, I emerged in the winter of 2010 with an uncanny drive to readdress the Particle Track Series.  Even though I had been involved in technology since the early development days in the 80s of Apple's "desktop publishing" projects, and with Adobe on their first products "Photoshop" and "Illustrator" and Autodesk's "3D Studio", and working in all of the creative aspects of the computer interactive game and entertainment industry for over 25 years ... I felt very compelled to return to using traditional media and techniques creating the new Particle Track Series pieces. I enjoy taking advantages of the 'mistakes' you can only make using these media. I have always drawn and painted much like a sculptor or ceramicist handling clay would, far from being a technical draftsman. 

 

 

So for no good reason other than 'they have to be drawn' there is a continuously growing body of work, The Particle Track Series for you to purchase and enjoy today.  Go to the Shop button here in this website or go directly to scott-wallin.pixels.com OR in Buenos Aires you can drop by the Central Newbery Galeria de Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and ask Eugenio to show you my work.

 

 

 

Contact me personally for the originals availability

Email me here or email: scott.wallin@yahoo.com

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