The Drawers - Scott Ellis   Commentary written by Julie Oakes

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Alley Installation

Minding your own business doesn't leave as much room to be your brother's keeper as Scott Ellis needs to continue to edit his understanding of things. He strikes with a dogmatic lash and the resounding snap is hopefully going to cause someone to wake up. How many times does the world have to be told that what is happening is coming through, loud and clear and off center, before reaction sets in and the inevitable revolution begins? Maybe the revolution has begun, quietly, in the collaged imagery of Scott Ellis. If the world ends with a whimper rather than a bang it's because the meek have been told that they will inherit the earth and that noise, commotion and rabble rousing will be of no avail when the final tally is made. Scott knows this so he quietly snips and glues, allowing the muffled groan of art, with historical precedent, to once again speak its mind. It is repeating the words of the song of the sixties “Something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones.”
Scott Ellis' work is statement oriented, message saturated, obsessively executed and well researched. He has his nose to the ground, his ear to the wall and his artistic discipline intact so that what he over-hears can be retold from a scrutinized vantage point. His work is didactic, opinionated, monomaniacal, and obstinate in regard to the matter spoken of - and proud to be so! It is also open, embracing, tolerant, and consummated within the act of making art, a vested belief. There is heart, soul and passion behind these reconstructed media images. The context has changed. The pictures, accepted by the public relations boards that mediate world events have been cut out, rearranged and pasted into a brand new position with the result being another new world order, another dreaded acronym flipped!
It is not a philosophy where 'nothing is sacred' and all can be expropriated. It is a philosophy where everything is sacred, needing to be rescued and with the power of one, Scott Ellis, having been given the license to create, is upping the ante with a clarion wake-up call.

Copyright © 2006,  Julie Oakes