Raised where East Coast suburbs filter into the woods and farms of Wyeth country, Scott Conary (RISD, BFA ’93) paints to better see and understand. His work tells stories of wonder and melancholy — of beauty’s arbitrary, often ephemeral nature, and of our relationships with each other and the world around us. Whether the folds of a landscape, the unexpected shapes of an improvised shelter, the earnestness of a flower, the mess and splendor of an egg, or the stretch of skin across a back, each subject is rendered in paint that balances intuition with technique, abstraction with realism.
 
His young daughter’s experiences with disability deepen and sharpen this vision, directing his focus toward the narratives and tensions in the everyday, pulling him further into the thicket of representational work. Beyond the studio, Conary lectures and leads workshops around the country and online. He and his family live in Portland, Oregon.

Sometimes I make artwork that really is not about communicating meaning, and this is one of those shows.  The button pieces are (pretty much) purely visual/decorative.  On one level they are about the craft of arranging and sewing on buttons, but their main reason for being is O MY GOD WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL THESE BUTTONS I HAVE MANAGED TO COLLECT???  I do love to collect things, usually with the idea that someday the collected objects, whatever they may be, will be turned into art.   Well, I am getting on in years and it’s time to start using all of these collected objects that I find hard to part with, and transform them into something that someone else might enjoy.  Aside from all of this, I simply love the process of making things—-of handwork.  Sewing on buttons takes a long time, and despite my arthritic hands I very much enjoy the slow process of selecting buttons one by one and sewing them on by hand.  Sometimes it is a meditative process and sometimes I am listening to music or to the news or thinking of other things.  No matter, the process of handwork is always enjoyable (even with the deadline of a show breathing down my neck).  Now….what about those hundreds of old bottles, or dozens of vintage cigar boxes, or jars full of scrabble letters, mahjong tiles, old keys, dead bees…..