Mike Scott - A Memorial
october 2nd - 26th, 2010

The world that Michael Scott created in his paintings was as valid, mysterious and multi-layered as Richard Doyle's fairy fantasies or Paul Delvaux's mystic cities. It came out of a life and imagination whose first masters were philosophy and politics as Mick was firmly established as an academic sociologist before the paintbrush took over his life. His world does not defy explanation, as others have shown in a recently-published monograph devoted to Mick. But explanations can only go so far.

To me, his later paintings – those made after the overt influence of Cubism waned – are about people, about episodes in family life, human dilemmas and achievements. Their titles elevate them from the commonplace but the artist's concerns are fundamental – the human condition. His figures rarely make eye contact with us; in his own words they 'are just this side of melancholy'. Their interaction and dependence is with and on each other, carefully choreographed like some Renaissance composition.

His contribution to, and role within, recent Scottish painting is unique. His voice, in life and art, was gentle and questioning, laughter never far away, as was his innate seriousness. It is a voice that is, and will be, missed.