Project Type: PAST

NAS | GUIDE & GLOSSARY

New American Scenery has been exhibiting internationally since 2019. 

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Initially guided by the images depicted in the historic transferware, Paul traveled to cities, explored natural landscapes, met collaborators, and produced a body of work now known as PAUL SCOTT: New American Scenery. First shown in the newly renovated porcelain room at RISD Museum curated by Elizabeth Williams, the exhibition traveled next to Albany Institute of History & Art in 2022 and selected works featured in exhibitions at other locations in both the USA and UK and four open now in the USA.

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Paul Scott is a leading figure in the international field of ceramics and print. He is known for his manipulation of transfer-printed designs on factory-made domestic tablewares, which thus become vehicles for socio-political commentary. New American Scenery is permeated with his response to the ‘American’ transfer-printed tablewares that were produced in Staffordshire during the first part of the nineteenth century, exclusively for export to America. They have a common format of a central motif framed within an ornamental border and are decorated with imagery that celebrates the new republic. Scott’s New American Scenery work often maintains the same traditional format, while his surface imagery highlights a range of contemporary themes and issues. On the reverse of each piece can be found his maker’s mark, information about the printed edition to which it belongs and his signature; several pieces also offer substantial narrative accounts of the subjects depicted.

Paul Scott: New American Scenery, was made possible by an Artist In Residence grant from the Alturas Foundation, with additional support from Ferrin Contemporary, RISD Museum, Arts Council England, and Albany Institute of History & Art.

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In New American Scenery, Scott scrutinizes the American landscape from a contemporary perspective, one that grapples with issues of globalization, energy generation and consumption, capitalism, social justice, immigration, and the human impact on the environment. The images that Scott creates for his ceramics depict unsettling views of nuclear power plants, aging urban centers, abandoned industrial sites, wildfires, and isolating walls. As representations of the American landscape, they suggest a subversion of the picturesque aesthetic—the unpicturesque picturesque—and a new, disturbing norm.

“NAS” includes the following bodies of work, many of which were conceived on location and/or with insights from significant collaborators. Each highlighted title below represents a sub-series containing multiple iterations and/or designs.

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PAST EXHIBITIONS

Pearlware, Polish, and Privilege: Artwork by Paul Scott

AT LSU MUSEUM OF ART | Baton Rouge, LA | October 27, 2022 to February 26, 2023

Paul Scott: New American Scenery

at Albany Institute of History & Art | Albany, NY | August 13, 2022 – December 31, 2022

New American Scenery: Printed Ceramics by Paul Scott at Aberystwyth Arts Centre

Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, England | July 9, 2022 – September 25, 2022

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Raid the Icebox Now with Paul Scott: New American Scenery 

at RISD MUSEUM |Providence, RI | September 13, 2019 – December 31, 2021

This installation juxtaposes early 19th-century Staffordshire ceramic transferwares drawn from the shelves of the RISD Museum storage with new Cumbrian Blue(s) artworks. Replacing the porcelain works typically on view in the Lucy Truman Aldrich gallery, New American Scenery melds historic printed tablewares, altered antique ceramics, and reclaimed Syracuse China plates with new screenprints to update early transferware subjects for the 21st century.

In the early nineteenth century, imported Staffordshire blue-and-white printed transferwares formed part of the new media of their age. Collected at the beginning of the twentieth century as iconic depictions of the early, independent United States, many were later donated to public art museums inspiring a new wave of pictorial wares.

Over the last five years, Paul Scott has been investigating these transferwares as well as the contemporary landscape of the United States. An ongoing dialogue between documentary, historical, travel and artistic research has led to the creation of a new substantive body of artwork, New American Scenery.

In it, Scott references archives, objects, the motives, and thinking of original collectors as well as the post-industrial landscapes of twenty-first-century America. The new work deals with issues surrounding globalization, energy generation and consumption, capitalism and immigration, and other legacies of history. The artwork includes antique tablewares re-worked by selective erasure, re-glazing, and the addition of newly printed decals. Others involve the re-use of cut, broken fragments using collage and traditional restoration processes, as well as prints and other works on paper.

– RISD installation photography by Erik Gould. All other photography by John Polak.

NAS | PAST

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Virtual Tour by 3d Virtual Spaces
Courtesy of The Bowes Museum

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THE BOWES MUSEUM

Barnard Castle, County Durham, England | September 26, 2020 – April 11, 2021

New American Scenery showcases the latest ceramic works by the contemporary Cumbrian artist Paul Scott, featuring works of historical transferwares that have been updated for today’s audience.