Scott Saw contemplates life and death in new book and exhibition
By Jennifer Chung

For his latest series of paintings, local artist Scott Saw tried to capture a sense of “euphoric sadness.”

Saw’s own strange, dichotomous description seems apt once you see the works in his solo show, “Curtains,” at Planet Rooth Studios. He was moved to create the series after the sudden death of his wife’s 20-year-old sister.

“It was shocking and made us think about life on so many different levels, and how it can just disappear like that,” Saw explains. “But another way to look at it is that it doesn’t necessarily just disappear, that there’s a bigger picture here. And that’s kind of what I tried to address with this series.”

What started out as catharsis for the artist turned into a tribute, and a celebration of the cycle of life and death.

“My initial reaction to this situation that happened was to go back to a time in my life when things were perfect—where I imagined myself as a hero, and monsters were just make-believe,” he says. “As I started getting into this, I realized there was a deeper thing going on. I started tapping into that, and it drifted into this pretty intense series about the life cycle.”

For Saw, the theatrical stage is a literal representation of the stages of existence that make up the life cycle. Every show, season and life is impermanent; inevitably the curtain must fall, only to rise again on another production. Facades and set pieces, fake noses and faux fires subtly pervade Saw’s vibrant, colorful paintings. Onstage, whimsical creatures recreate visions of childhood.

Yet as dreamlike and playful as the pieces are, they are also informed by melancholy, and often an impending sense of danger.

It seems fitting, then, that Saw got friend and fellow artist David J to pen the foreword to Curtains: Paintings about the Wonder of Life and the Mystery of Death, Saw’s book based on the series. Saw reverently calls the singer and bassist of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets “the godfather of goth.”

“If there’s a guy to go to that can see something deeper in something that’s about life and death, he is the guy,” says Saw.