Scott Redden paintings are vivid, in contrasting yellow and green tones overflowing the entire canvas, simple composition with typical American architectural elements.
Scott Redden combines motifs of rolling pastures, voluminous clouds, verdant trees and homestead architecture, creating nostalgic paintings evocative of an earlier, simpler rural reality. Beneath the bucolic surface of the landscape, settings exist an urban undertow (he has created the most of his paintings in New York City) that flavors the imagery. Distinguished by lone or cropped placement, the isolation and confinement of these forms contrast poignantly with the implied atmosphere of warmth and connectedness in his chosen subject.
He effectively juxtaposed complementary characteristics: past with a present, cheer with melancholy, interconnectedness with disconnection, clarity with mystery. Reddens’s paintings are conceived from minimal yet mindful sketches culled from photographic fragments, memories, and imagination so that the inspiration of his pictorial imagery straddles truth and invention. Once his composition is established, the drawing is transferred to a canvas by hand in sections at a time over a period of days or weeks. This tactical process ensures that each element receives the same attentive care as the overall composition and enhances the forms with perfect puzzle-like correspondence with each other.
