Southern Progress
20 questions for artist Scott Belville
Scott Belville is fair and slim, with a Southerner’s soft-spoken demeanor. If you met him at a cocktail party, you might peg him for a literature professor with a wry sense of humor. He laughs frequently, but his laugh is subdued and fleeting, like the rustle of tissue paper.
Belville looks nothing like his work.
He hesitates to describe his paintings as “dark,” but that’s the very word Belville’s psychologically intense images of forlorn adults and prematurely wise children conjure up. His landscapes are barren and nearly post-apocalyptic, featuring amputated trees, junked cars and al fresco TV sets.
During a recent interview, Belville sat in his Athens home, in the former studio of his wife, Judy Jones (who died last year from cancer). He described the changes in his life and the paintings that will be featured in his seventh solo show at Atlanta’s Sandler Hudson Gallery.
Age:
53.
Neighborhood:
Five Points, Athens.
Education:
Masters of fine art in painting, Ohio University.
Is painting fun or work?
I don’t know if it qualifies for either. When I’m in a painting, I feel more connected as a human being than anything else I do. Some people see it as hermetic, but I think it opens the heart, opens the self to a more humane place.
When do you paint?
I pretty much try to do it every day. It takes awhile to get to that place in the painting where you’re immersed. And I work on several at the same time. Ideally, about a four to six-hour day is good.
You teach at the University of Georgia. Do you think kids need to go to art school?
Probably not. But at the same time, it’s not a bad place to be around other artists and be working with them.
If you could live anywhere?
I don’t think Athens is too bad. And I like Italy.
Alternative career:
I’d have liked to be a swami.
Most Southern trait:
The ability to reflect and process things.
Your paintings often feature hubcaps.
Growing up down here, there used to be houses all over the place that had hubcaps decorating the walls. It was kind of wonderful and magical. Also, I think it’s just an apt symbol of the car culture.
Most influential person in your life?
Probably my wife. We just had a very unusual, strong relationship.
When did you meet your wife?
We met in 1974, and we married in 1980. She was the nude model in my drawing class.
Favorite music:
It’s so eclectic. Anything from Lucinda Williams to a lot of sitar, Indian music.
Describe your work to someone who’s never seen it:
I might say, ‘Think Flannery O’Connor.’ What was the famous quote? Something about she didn’t make odd characters, she just had the ability to see them.
Are your paintings about a psychological place or an actual one?
I think growing up here and having seen the amount of growth so fast, so unconsidered, probably my reaction to that shows up in the work. I read an article in the Atlanta paper a few years back about how development had gone from 25 acres a day [of] growth to 50 in a matter of a couple of years. So how can you have a sense of place when that is happening ... at that rate?
Social cause most on your mind:
That loss of the environment, and damage to the visual environment. Because it’s so rich otherwise here. It’s tropical, it’s lush, it’s beautiful.
Guilty pleasure:
The first one that came to mind is ice cream.
Everyone in Athens has some connection to R.E.M. What’s yours?
Michael Stipe. I had him in a beginning painting class. And I have one of his paintings. I kept it because I liked it.
What would you do with $100,000?
That’s a lot of ice cream. It seems like I’ve been lucky and have enough to do what I want to do. And I think I’m getting to that point where I’m more wanting to give back.
Any particular cause?
You see everything that’s out there and you just think, ‘Could I do with a little less?’ More isn’t always more. I think it’s also an odd period for me, because my identity got so wrapped up with my wife’s. Things get comingled and it’s not money, it’s your brain. It was probably unnatural how much we saw each other, but we did. And so trying to get back to my own brain is an interesting endeavor right now.
I feel like a graduate student again. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Felicia.feaster@creativeloafing.com
Belville looks nothing like his work.
He hesitates to describe his paintings as “dark,” but that’s the very word Belville’s psychologically intense images of forlorn adults and prematurely wise children conjure up. His landscapes are barren and nearly post-apocalyptic, featuring amputated trees, junked cars and al fresco TV sets.
During a recent interview, Belville sat in his Athens home, in the former studio of his wife, Judy Jones (who died last year from cancer). He described the changes in his life and the paintings that will be featured in his seventh solo show at Atlanta’s Sandler Hudson Gallery.
Age:
53.
Neighborhood:
Five Points, Athens.
Education:
Masters of fine art in painting, Ohio University.
Is painting fun or work?
I don’t know if it qualifies for either. When I’m in a painting, I feel more connected as a human being than anything else I do. Some people see it as hermetic, but I think it opens the heart, opens the self to a more humane place.
When do you paint?
I pretty much try to do it every day. It takes awhile to get to that place in the painting where you’re immersed. And I work on several at the same time. Ideally, about a four to six-hour day is good.
You teach at the University of Georgia. Do you think kids need to go to art school?
Probably not. But at the same time, it’s not a bad place to be around other artists and be working with them.
If you could live anywhere?
I don’t think Athens is too bad. And I like Italy.
Alternative career:
I’d have liked to be a swami.
Most Southern trait:
The ability to reflect and process things.
Your paintings often feature hubcaps.
Growing up down here, there used to be houses all over the place that had hubcaps decorating the walls. It was kind of wonderful and magical. Also, I think it’s just an apt symbol of the car culture.
Most influential person in your life?
Probably my wife. We just had a very unusual, strong relationship.
When did you meet your wife?
We met in 1974, and we married in 1980. She was the nude model in my drawing class.
Favorite music:
It’s so eclectic. Anything from Lucinda Williams to a lot of sitar, Indian music.
Describe your work to someone who’s never seen it:
I might say, ‘Think Flannery O’Connor.’ What was the famous quote? Something about she didn’t make odd characters, she just had the ability to see them.
Are your paintings about a psychological place or an actual one?
I think growing up here and having seen the amount of growth so fast, so unconsidered, probably my reaction to that shows up in the work. I read an article in the Atlanta paper a few years back about how development had gone from 25 acres a day [of] growth to 50 in a matter of a couple of years. So how can you have a sense of place when that is happening ... at that rate?
Social cause most on your mind:
That loss of the environment, and damage to the visual environment. Because it’s so rich otherwise here. It’s tropical, it’s lush, it’s beautiful.
Guilty pleasure:
The first one that came to mind is ice cream.
Everyone in Athens has some connection to R.E.M. What’s yours?
Michael Stipe. I had him in a beginning painting class. And I have one of his paintings. I kept it because I liked it.
What would you do with $100,000?
That’s a lot of ice cream. It seems like I’ve been lucky and have enough to do what I want to do. And I think I’m getting to that point where I’m more wanting to give back.
Any particular cause?
You see everything that’s out there and you just think, ‘Could I do with a little less?’ More isn’t always more. I think it’s also an odd period for me, because my identity got so wrapped up with my wife’s. Things get comingled and it’s not money, it’s your brain. It was probably unnatural how much we saw each other, but we did. And so trying to get back to my own brain is an interesting endeavor right now.
I feel like a graduate student again. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Felicia.feaster@creativeloafing.com