October 27, 2022 â February 26, 2023
LSU MUSEUM OF ART
Shaw Center for the Arts
100 Lafayette Street, Fifth Floor
Baton Rouge, LA 70801
Paul Scott transforms factory-made tableware with subversive imagery and commentary. He replicates traditional porcelain designs developed by late 18th-century English artisans, such as the Willow pattern or Spodeâs Blue Italian. These early ornamentations included appropriated motifs copied from hand-painted blue and white wares imported from China, and were mass-produced using printed glaze transfers applied on porcelain and pearlware blanks.
At first glance, Scottâs contemporary redesigns are indistinguishable from manufactured originals. This intentional mimicking is the result of years of studio practice and academic research into the lost history of British and European transferware. The resulting objects seamlessly blend modern and conceptual imagery, posing compelling observations on current issues such as environmental destruction, racism, gentrification, and social injustice.
The series New American Scenery is the result of a multi-year grant from the Alturas Foundation that enabled Scott to travel and conduct research throughout the United States. He studied transferware in museum collections and visited many of the sites illustrated on their surfaces. The historic originals were not made in America. The objects were supplied by British companies that plied the burgeoning post-Revolution market with decorative and luxury goods. In the early 1800s, factory owners and agents traveled to the New Republic, meeting with merchants and taking orders for British-made ceramics. Local artists were often commissioned to sketch subject matter, including idyllic landscapes, dignitaries, landmarks, and historical sites, which, as engravings, would be used to decorate tableware earmarked for export. These highly prized English objects, initially marketed to an expanding upper class, were available in varying consumer levels. Popular mass-produced designs were sold to an ever-growing merchant and middle class who had the funds to afford decorative objects, while wealthier households commissioned their own patterns, often printed on finer bone china or porcelain
In this exhibition, Scottâs artworks are paired with objects from the LSU Museum of Artâs permanent collection to provoke further contemplation on the issues presented by the artist.
PROGRAMMING & EVENTS
Important Dates:
Oct. 27, 2022 – Opening
Feb. 26, 2023 – Closing
Artist Gallery Talk: Paul Scott Â
Tuesday, November 16 at 6:00 p.m.
Meet Paul Scott, the featured artist of Pearlware, Polish, and Privilege, and learn about his innovative printmaking techniques. FREE.
LECTURE | “Cumbrian Blue(s): New American Scenery, Transferwares for the 21st Century”
Past Event | Sunday, November 16, 5:00 pm
Paul Scott, ceramics artist, will give a Paula G. Manship Endowed Lecture to the College of Art & Design on Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. in 103 Design Building Auditorium.
English, b. 1953, Darley Dale, Derbyshire, England
lives and works in Cumbria, UK
Paul Scott is a Cumbrian-based artist with a diverse practice and an international reputation. Creating individual pieces that blur the boundaries between fine art, craft and design, he is well known for research into printed vitreous surfaces, as well as his characteristic blue and white artworks in glazed ceramic.
Scottâs artworks can be found in public collections around the globe â including The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design Norway, the Victoria and Albert Museum London, National Museums Liverpool, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn Art Museum USA. Commissioned work can be found in a number of UK museums as well as public places in the North of England, including Carlisle, Maryport, Gateshead and Newcastle Upon Tyne. He has also completed large-scale works in Hanoi, Vietnam and GuldagergĂ„rd public sculpture park in Denmark.
A combination of rigorous research, studio practice, curation, writing and commissioned work ensures that his work is continually developing. It is fundamentally concerned with the re-animation of familiar objects, landscape, pattern and a sense of place. He was Professor of Ceramics at Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) from 2011â2018. Scott received his Bachelors of Art Education and Design at Saint Martinâs College and Ph.d at the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design in Manchester, England.
His current research project New American Scenery has been enabled by an Alturas Foundation artist award, Ferrin Contemporary, and funding from Arts Council England. More on New American Scenery, here.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION LENDERS & SPONSORS
Paul Scott is the Paula G. Manship Endowed Lecture Series Visiting Artist. This exhibition is a collaboration between the LSU College of Art + Design, the LSU School of Art, and the LSU Museum of Art.
Support for this exhibition and all LSU MOA exhibitions is provided by the generous donors to the Annual Exhibition Fund: Louisiana CAT; The Imo N. Brown Memorial Fund in memory of Heidel Brown and Mary Ann Brown; The Alma Lee, H.N. and Cary Saurage Fund; Charles “Chuck” Edward Schwing; Robert and Linda Bowsher; Becky and Warren Gottsegen; LSU College of Art + Design; Mr. and Mrs. Sanford A. Arst; and The Newton B. Thomas Family/Newtron Group Fund.
LSU MUSEUM OF ART
Shaw Center for the Arts
100 Lafayette Street, Fifth Floor
Baton Rouge, LA 70801
INQUIRE
Additional works may be available to acquire, but not listed here.
If interested in lists of all works and series: Send us a message
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