Scott Ketcham's Latest Paintings: Approach Ovoidance!

"We Are Carried" by Scott Ketcham

So already, I love "We Are Carried,"* the Scott Ketcham painting to the left. In fact, she--the figure is the painting in my mind--has been living in Scott's and my front hallway since last June. With Scott's annual open studios just over two weeks away, however, she'll soon be returning to Rockland to be on view among other works that Scott has created since last November. I will miss her if she finds a new home. But I want her out in the world, moving forward, grabbing and holding the hushed attention of people who encounter her.

Scott believes that any painting means what it means to the person looking at it. His hope is that someone seeing a painting that he's done will either like it immediately and continue to look at it-- or be sufficiently drawn to it to keep looking at it, thinking about it, feeling about it. He hopes meaning and connection, and the pleasure associated with both, will come to those who seek them.

Frankly, I really can't tell you what "We Are Carried" means. But I can tell you that it means something to me. And I can tell you why I love it. Whatever the force is that carries this figure from left to right, I have the sense that she's moving undeterred and unintimidated through something substantial and challenging. Calm and intent (and also very beautiful), she exudes purpose and personal authority. While an external force may be part of what's carrying her, she's also carrying herself-- and the egg-shaped object she cradles against her upper arm with her left hand.

Scott takes in a work by Colleen Heslin

But where is she, and what actually is she moving through? Is she underground tunneling her way through marble? Or is she part of a wing in flight, which would make the mottled white to her right something we're seeing from above? What exactly is the object she carrying? A skull? An egg? Does it serve her, or does she serve it? 

While my various questions would interest Scott, they would not affect his judgment of his work. For him, a painting is an in-the-moment experience. Whatever idea he begins with is more spark than blueprint. As he paints, it develops, evolves, takes on a life of its own. His goal is to materialize the vision unfolding before his mind's eye as he uses his paints, tools, skills, and imagination. He serves only the vision, which he co-creates.

There are other influences on his vision and output besides his materials and his imagination. Because Scott sculpts as well as paints, he is sensitive to the solidity and heft of three-dimensional forms, the ways they sit in space. He's also humbled and inspired by other artists to whose works he perpetually returns, among them Constantin Brâncuși. When I look at the somewhat polished, featureless egg-shaped object that Scott's beautiful figure extends before her, I think of the solidity, simplicity, elegance, and strength of Brâncuși's ovoid sculptures. And I wonder if Scott's rendering of the elemental force that propels her from within and without draws on Brâncuși's work.

But wait. All of the preceding seems positive and even reverent. But the truth is that Scott paints a lot of paintings that I would never place in my front hallway. If you've read my blog posts about Scott's work in the past--for example, the blog I posted before Scott's 2015 open studios--you already know that. But because I love much of Scott's work--and because I'm Scott's wife--I always strive for a positive relationship with Scott's paintings, even those disturb me. In the last couple of years, my strategy has been to focus on a motif developing across works, especially if that motif manifests itself in at least one painting that I know I love.  

This year, I chose to approach ovoidance--to pay attention to all those objects and forms that are oval or egg-shaped. Having made my decision, I looked back through Scott's paintings to find the first that featured a prominent oval object. It was "Tethered."

"Tethered" by Scott Ketcham

I paid very little attention to "Tethered" when I first saw it, even though it has the kind of ambiguity that generally engages me. Though I personally don't associate being tethered with feeling bliss, the figure appears to be in a state of rapture or even peaceful sleep. But is she fully human? One of her arms seems to end in something other than a hand. Meanwhile, the bottom half of her body appears charred or bark-covered. Is this woman happily becoming a tree? If so, is that white oval that contains a smaller black oval a hollow in that tree? Are we looking at Daphne in the process of becoming a laurel tree to escape Apollo's pursuit?

Putting aside my mythological associations, I noticed the white line running from the white oval up her body, crossing her ribs, and ultimately reaching her chin: is that the tether referred to by the painting's title? Is she illuminated from within, perhaps by the activity of her womb, perhaps by divine light or energy rising from another kind of ovoid place in her lower body? Being tethered to the light within: now that kind of being tethered really could be blissful.

Despite my theories and associations,I've yet to arrive at a "final" interpretation of what's really going on here. But through the process of looking, speculating, engaging with the painting so fully, I've begun to develop a relationship with it.

"Embrace Thing" by Scott Ketcham

In the next two paintings that I approached, the egg-shaped objects are exterior to the figures' bodies. "Embrace Thing" has a Wizard of Oz field-of-poppies effect on me: though I sense that something's amiss here, all I want to do is close my eyes and fall into the same kind of contented sleep that the figure is relishing as she holds tight to the ovoid source of her rapture. But what is it? Its slightly elongated, darkly shaded right-hand side suggests that it might be a skull. But then there are those brown, hair-like tendrils or tentacles that dangle from it. Is the figure enamoured of an octopus-like being? Has some god transformed himself into a creature in order to seduce and ravish her? Despite the soft-looking, muted pink that surrounds her, there's something wrong here. I may be looking at a Psyche figure whose total fulfillment has robbed her of any desire to know whom or what fulfills her.

"Precious Defended" by Scott Ketcham

But while sitting with "Embrace Thing" has led me to uneasy appreciation of it, immersion in "Precious Defended" hasn't led me to any amount of affection and connection. More than many of Scott's paintings, it makes me yearn to know Scott's intention. Its title is arch, sarcastic, but whose point of view does it represent? The painting could be a dark joke, especially given that we don't know whether Precious is a huge egg, an egg-shaped solid, an imagined ovoid something. Meanwhile, is Precious' protector a model posing as a disturbed person, or a woman whose loss or trauma has led her to a life spent hunching around the strange replacement for what was really taken from her? However I think my way through this painting, I remain both put off and haunted by it.


Up to this point, I've talked about two paintings in which the ovoid forms are encircled by arms, and two in which they could be wombs or the eggs developing within those wombs. During the last two years, Scott has painted multiple full-grown figures encased in somewhat pear-shaped membranes, conveying that gestation and birth occur throughout the human life span. All of these "in utero" paintings have given me pause, and only recently have I loved one of them from the first moment I saw it.

"Umbilicus" by Scott Ketcham

Take "Umbilicus," which Scott painted last February. The joined bodies of two figures form one variation of an oval; the space between their joined bodies forms another. And they seemingly whirl in energetic suspension against the backdrop of a third oval that is matte, white, and perfectly egg-shaped. Are they cells in an egg? How long will they whirl conjoined? I feel the energy, the synergy, but sense some kind of bondage, too. I have to wonder if Scott is being bold and provocative in order to break through into a new realm of vision. Regardless, I don't want to see "Umbilicus" in my dreams--or my hallway.

"Warm Ball" by Scott Ketcham

"Warm Ball," the painting to the right, portrays an adult human float-sleeping in a shadowy sac that's more spherical than ovoid. A completely developed human egg, she has almost outgrown the womb that contains her: her head is already making its way into the birth canal. It's possible that she's trying to stay put, to stockpile the energy she'll need for the demanding tasks of emerging from the sphere and navigating reborn life. But the time has come for her to leave her shadowy confines. She needs to come out into the world and the light.

"Sack" by Scott Ketcham

Last but not least is "Sack," which Scott painted only a couple of weeks ago. Whether you view the apparently sleeping figure as having a sack-like garment draped over her shoulders or as floating within a womb-like sac, golden warmth surrounds her. I don't know if she inhabits light, space, or both. I do know that when I first beheld her, all my most recent feelings and convictions about what it means to be held by spirit and place--I wrote about this in late September--roared back to me with affirming force. I'm probably not the first wife whose painter husband has been able to portray some of the beliefs and emotions that are dearest to her heart. But I am very grateful to have access to a visual expression of them. This painting would be welcome in my front hallway anytime!

There's a lot of literal and figurative darkness in Scott Ketcham's most recent work--but a great deal of literal and figurative light as well. And a great deal of vibrant color. I've chosen to present some of Scott's most existentially challenging works in this blog post. But don't assume that every piece that will hang on the walls of Scott's studio during open studios will be similarly challenging: there will be much you won't need to ovoid if your goal is to spend some time exploring interesting beauty. Like the woman in the painting on the right-hand side of the the open studios flyer, you may find yourself surrounded by color and light. I hope you'll come!

* All of Scott Ketcham's paintings can be viewed on his web site: <www.scottketcham.com>. 

** Screen shot of cover of book available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Constantin-Brancusi-Carolyn-Lanchner-2010-10-31/dp/B01M0RPJGK?SubscriptionId=AKIAIKBZ7IH7LXTW3ARA&&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B01M0RPJGK&tag=wwwbookcompar-20&ascsubtag=581947db48308f10483b5c31