ABOUT THE ARTIST
R. Scott Colglazier grew up in southern Indiana, attended college and graduate school, and then spent most of his adult life as a clergyperson. His doctoral work was focused on the relationship of literature and religion. He served some of the most prestigious churches in America, including University Christian Church in Fort Worth, Texas, The Riverside Church in New York City, and First Congregational Church of Los Angeles. He retired in 2019 to work full-time as an artist. He now resides in Bloomington Indiana, living steps from Indiana University, and spends his days working in his rustic studio. As an “outsider” artist, Colglazier brings an unbridled enthusiasm to his painting and enjoys sharing it with others.
ARTIST FILM
A short film that gives insight into Colglazier, his art, and what inspires him as an artist.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Why art?
I constantly ask myself that question, especially when I spend day after day working alone in my southern Indiana studio.
Art comes from the depths of the human spirit, and the human spirit must be honored, loved, and nurtured – always – but that’s especially true in our desperate times. This means that art isn’t merely nice, like an accessory on a new car, but it’s essential for the human experience.
Art brings beauty to the forefront of our consciousness, and beauty is everything when it comes to the human spirit. Beauty resonates within the depths of our humanity. When I am in the presence of beauty, I am alive – deeply, joyfully, meaningfully alive! And when I cannot see beauty, I suffer within my soul like a dusty plant in need of water.
Am I chasing something beautiful in my painting? Yes, of course, I am. But it’s more than beauty. I am after creativity and generativity, a deep-down aliveness that affirms my human experience. In this sense, for me at least, painting is a
profoundly spiritual enterprise.
Almost all my paintings are about the abstract use of color and texture, often juxtaposing the materiality of color to achieve an evocative insight or emotional resonance. I am not trying to achieve any kind of figurative presentation. Nor are my paintings didactic. Instead, I’m inviting the viewer to experience a resonant truth that is at once beyond us and deeply within us.
Some paintings are dreamlike, using a pointillism technique to create an energized, painterly canvas. Swirls and swoops (and some drips too) are incorporated into many of my paintings. William Blake once wrote that, “Energy is
eternal delight.” I think it’s fair to say that all my paintings have a novice like rawness. Tidy paintings are not in my wheelhouse. Sometimes I use a brush. At other times I utilize a long spatula-like knife. (Most paintings have ten to fifteen layers of paint on the canvas.) While some artists have a delicate hand with their painting, and I admire that so much, I tend to pile up paint and color
with all the delicacy of a heavy-weight boxer. If more is good . . . then why not more on top of more on top of more? Anyone who visits my house can quickly see that I’m not a minimalist.
Every now and then people ask, “What were you trying to say with this painting?” First of all, I don’t have a specific “intention” with any of my paintings. Nor am I trying to “say” something. My process is that I listen to my human experience,
including mining the depths of my memory, and then, well, Paint Happens!