Scott Grodesky was born in 1968 in Warren,Ohio. He attended the Cleveland Institute of Art for two years before dropping out and moving to NYC in 1989 where he worked as an artist assistant to Joseph Glasco. In the 90’s he showed at the Venice Biennale Aperto 93’ and at Art and Public, Geneva. Also, Rubenstein /Diacono Gallery , NYC. In the 00’s he had shown with LFL and Zach Feuer Galleries ,NYC and Daniel Weinberg Gallery in Los Angeles. Recently he was in the group show” Human/Nature” at Tiger strikes Asteroid and had a one person show-“Subway Spectator” at George gallery. Bushwick, NYC.

QUESTION:

Looking at your paintings of the subway, I wonder if they are group portraits of individuals, a painterly sociology of the L train in 2018 and 2019, or a depiction of the experience of the subway rider, you, the painter. Is your focus on portraying the psychology, the particularities of these characters? Is there greater interest in the way each figure might stand in for characteristics of their group affiliation (age, race, gender, sub-culture)? Or are we, the viewers, placed in the position of the subjective subway rider, locked in a box with strangers, stared at by some, ignored by others, the crowding accentuated by the reverse perspective where it feels like the background figures might be pushing the foreground figures out of the painting? Clearly you could be interested in all three. Can you talk about these three strands in your paintings?

ANSWER:

L train -Dekalb -2019- acrylic and color pencil on linen  26” x 20”

Haha, all of this, plus formalism. The L train is my main subway commute to my job as an architectural model maker. I’m on the train from Myrtle-Wyckoff all the way to 8th ave., so I have a lot of time watching my fellow straphangers. One of the things that strikes me is the different groups of people that get on at different stops- who lives where. The train when I get on is already packed with a full NYC mix of race, age and social strata. As we move towards the city a younger and hipper crowd gets on. It’s at these points that there are different scenes that I witness and that stick with me. So, I take these memories and use them as templates or scaffolding to construct the paintings. This is where a mix of defining each person as a specific race, age or personality is applied to the paintings. Then there is the crowding and how that is a great thing to apply to reverse perspective. This is when the psychology seems to come out, because the reverse compression of space amplifies the extreme of the rush hour crush.

Pink Headphones- L train- 31” x 26” 2020 – acrylic and color pencil on canvas

One of the things I like about the subway and this psychology is that it provides a place to introduce race into the painting without it solely being about that. I see the subways somewhat as a randomizing machine. People get on and mix and it is always changing. So, I’m happy that we have that in NYC, this open and mixing society. I’m also struck by the clothes and colors and how these, on a formal level, can be applied to a painting.

Pink Headphones 2 – L train- 2020- 29” x 22”- acrylic and color pencil on canvas