Scott Noel
“Painting beautiful people and things in beautiful light, indeed finding almost every moment of perception a candidate for this beauty, I wonder if a certain fidelity to the ever-renewed ripening of an orchard through all its necessary stages of metamorphosis isn’t an analogy for the privilege of painting.”
- Scott Noel,
The Apples of Pomona, 2024 catalog
Still Life With Bouquet, 30″ x 44″, Oil On Canvas
Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present Apples of Pomona, an exhibition of new works by Scott Noel showcasing a vibrant array of new oil paintings and several acrylic and pastel works on rag board. Each painting is alive with Noel’s spirited intention to, “vary and reconfigure painting’s visual eloquence to express the beauty of the world”. While the small to medium-sized paintings range in subject from the nude to still-life and landscape, the exhibition is anchored by three monumental, multi-panel figure compositions that demonstrate Noel’s devotion to layered narratives, sophisticated color mixing and his signature painterly touch. These large-scale pieces draw on the themes and archetypes of ancient to contemporary times, masterfully transforming everyday neighborhood scenes into settings where the grand narratives of Western drama unfold.
In Apples of Pomona, two of Noel’s largest paintings feature scenes from the basketball court, using the sport’s inherent rhythm and movement as metaphors for broader human interactions. Complex and enthralling, Parker St. Shootaround, Hippomenes and Atalanta, measures over six feet tall and thirteen feet wide and depicts an impossible number of games unfolding simultaneously on a single court. This work, titled after the mythic race between the swift-footed Atalanta and her suitor Hippomenes, offers an allegory for the playful, yet competitive, dynamics of modern relationships. It could also suggest a commentary on the complexities of today’s digital interactions—where multiple conversations and connections, each within their own sphere, occur all at once on the stage of virtual reality. In this canvas, even the logos adorning the players’ shoes speak to the wider cultural narrative of brand allegiance, yet another type of association. Noel comments, “The Jazz-like rhythm of the playground is, of course, full of cultural and political associations. The movements of basketball can be beautiful and, at times, cathartic. Spins and crossovers are dance-like steps.” Indeed, amid the chaos of the twenty figures and eleven basketballs, a sense of order and choreography is revealed, each player’s movement a part of a greater dance orchestrated by the artist.
Noel’s vast oeuvre evokes a lineage that connects antiquity and the Italian Renaissance with the expressive impulses of Degas and the bold innovations of the Modernists, positioning Noel in the esteemed company of contemporary perceptualists and magical realists. Stimulated by the perpetual confluence of intuition, imagination, perception, scientific theories, mythology and conventional understandings vs. moment to moment consciousness, Noel’s own artistic practice can also be viewed as allegory. When painting, he traverses through the sacred orchard of the Roman goddess Pomona, absorbing and embracing all that surrounds him. Much like Vertumnus, Pomona’s suitor, he is in pursuit of something eternal and beautiful. He summarily opines, “Artists search for a form with enough amplitude to contain everything they care about, everything, however embarrassing, they have loved. For me, painting doesn’t simply show the world, but makes a world so replete, so richly textured, our experience becomes clearer, more nuanced and more meaningful.”
Image Left: Portrait of Emily, 48" x 42", Oil On Linen
Scott Noel is an artist and educator who has lived and worked in Philadelphia for over forty years. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across the country, notably at The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Hollins University in Virginia, and The Bowery Gallery in New York City. His pieces are featured in prominent collections including the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and many others. Apples of Pomona marks Noel’s thirteenth exhibition with Gross McCleaf Gallery.
Emily Visits The Studio, 56″ x 80″, Oil On Linen
Exhibition Dates:
April 4 - 27, 2024
Reception & Meet the Artist:
Saturday, April 6, 1 - 4 pm
