October 13, 2024 · 3pm-5pm
Davenport Gallery, Vidinghoff Gallery
Free
Exhibition Dates: October 13 – November 16, 2024
Davenport and Vidinghoff Lobby Galleries
Opening Reception: October 13, 3-5pm
Gallery Talk: Saturday, November 2
Wayne Art Center is pleased to present Eternal Recurrence – Scott Noel – Large Figure Compositions 1982-2024. The figure has been at the center of Scott Noel’s work for over 40 years. The oil paintings on linen featured in the Davenport Gallery encompass the intersection of Noel’s experience with and passion for the history of art, the vitality of the artist’s studio life, and the rhythm of the playground and its place in Philadelphia culture in work that seeks the theatricality of Baroque paintings, mythology and the allegorical.
On view in the Vidinghoff Lobby Gallery are head studies and portraits by Noel who always works directly from life. Many of these pieces served as alla prima-like rehearsals for figures that appear in Noel’s large figure compositions in the Davenport Gallery. These studies and preparatory drawings invite exhibition viewers to consider how Noel’s models become the “actors in the artist’s work.”
In addition to an October 13 opening reception, Scott Noel will be with WAC for his gallery talk on November 2 and his Figure Drawing and Painting workshop October 26 & 27. Noel serves as juror for The Figure: Portraiture & Narrative at Wayne Art Center this fall. This juried exhibition and Scott’s own work in Eternal Recurrence will be on view concurrently from October 13-November 16, 2024. Noel’s 2024 catalog Scott Noel – Painting Ideas is available for purchase at Wayne Art Center’s Gallery Shop for $10. The artist’s work appears courtesy of Philadelphia’s Gross McCleaf Gallery.
Scott Noel - Biography
After completing undergraduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, Noel moved to Philadelphia in 1978. His first important solo exhibition was in the Fleisher Challenge Series in 1980. Since that time, he has mounted over 40 major shows across the country. Noel is represented by Gross McCleaf Gallery in Philadelphia and his work is included in numerous private, public and corporate collections including the Museum of the Pennsylvania Academy, the Woodmere Art Museum, the Arkansas Art Center and the Pennsylvania Convention Center. From 1996-2024, Noel taught drawing and painting in the undergraduate and graduate programs at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His legacy as an educator also includes teaching at The University of the Arts, Arcadia University and Community College of Philadelphia. Wayne Art Center welcomes the return of Scott Noel’s work to the Davenport Gallery as well as his service once again as exhibition juror. Noel’s work was featured in the art center’s 2016 exhibition The Nude, Mirror of Desire during which time he co-juried The Nude Figure – A Juried Fine Art Exhibition with Paul DuSold.
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