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One
of Philadelphia’s most articulate artists, Scott Noel is as
comfortable with words as he is with paint, and thus has few
problems verbalizing his particular artistic views. In the case of
Woodmere’s Still
Life with Crayon and Bag, Noel himself eloquently described the
execution of the painting in a letter now among the artist’s
files at Woodmere: “. . . I was primarily interested in studying
the unity bestowed by a given light and arrangement on an ensemble
of unprepossessing objects. I wanted to study this unity with an
extremely physical and assertive painterly touch. Through the
course of the painting I discovered an unexpected sacramental
dignity in the image. This is a quality for which I cannot take
credit, but from whose discovery I learned a great deal. What I
learned had something to do with the evocative power of interval
and emptiness. I think the spaces between the objects, the
physical presence of the ‘absences’ among the objects, beneath
the tablecloth and surrounding the ensemble are very important and
taught me something that has become especially relevant to the
figure compositions I've been developing through the nineties.”
Noel’s piece joins numerous other masterful still life paintings
in the permanent collection by such artists as Adolph Borie,
Arthur Meltzer, Paulette Van Roekens, Ben Solowey, and Jane Piper. |
