Scott Franklin

Artist Statement
My paintings recreate the process of the subconscious mind. I try to visually depict the thought process before it evolves to an idea. I have always been fascinated with cause and effect and have pondered system and order as it has been presented by  artists and philosophers.

My technique uses cause and effect to covey order.  I use theories of time and space to construct my vision. I allow sudden gestures in technique to create my subject matter. Emotion and action are vital to my work because they render meaning and purpose within an individual piece. I break down colors and create layers, mimicking the shifts and fractures of ideas inside the human mind.

The physical elements that visually expresses my  technique are the newspaper and fabric. They create form and add dimension to the canvas. The newspaper pieces are chosen at random, but find significant ways to tell the story in the painting. The fabric allows a person to become part of the painting.

Artist Biography
Scott Franklin was born in Ruston, Louisiana. He has spent most of his life in Arkansas, where he studied painting and graphic art at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia. He participated in a one-man show at Brinson Fine Arts gallery in 2005 before moving to Little Rock to pursue a career as a graphic artist.

Although Franklin enjoys the versatility of working with a digital medium, his first love remains the paint brush. Drawing influence from Cubism and Fauvism, his style expresses the human mind processing movement and memory in a collage of acrylic glaze and newspaper. His amorphic forms simplify movement and create emotion while a variety of textures add depth and dimension.

Franklinʼs reputation continues to grow with buyers in Arkansas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas. His interests include the American Civil War, art history and archeology.

"Truth-Compassion-Tolerance" Art Exhibition
Preface
Truth, Compassion, Tolerance:The Art of a Higher Good

From the dawn of antiquity people have probed the profundities and mysteries of life, asking what is man¡¯s place in nature and how the human condition is to be understood. Perhaps nowhere was such inquiry more esteemed than in China¡¯s traditional culture, where man was seen as an integral part of nature. In that culture great consideration was given to the workings of the heavens, the qualities of the land, and harmony between people, and it was in the dynamic balance of such things that the sage sought concordance with Nature. Distilled in three laws, that Nature is: truth, compassion, and tolerance. The wellspring of all that may be called good, these laws lay at the heart of so much that humanity cherishes, be it moral values, freedom, or even peace. They undergird and yet surpass divisions of place and time, culture, the religious and the political. Eternal and ubiquitous, they are the spirit of life itself.

For the artist whose work bespeaks of a search for the true meaning of life, that eulogizes the divine, or grapples with questions even of good and evil, little can it be said that her work is meant merely to please or entertain. She creates, instead, to inspire in the viewer a higher wisdom or truth. The work of art is not here so much material as vehicle, the promise of which is passage to truth. What imbues the true work of art with an enduring, or universal, quality is its capacity to transcend situated, temporal ideas of beauty. It stands capable of cleansing the soul and ennobling the spirit. Only endowed with these traits may a work of art endure the test of time.

The works in this exhibit were created by a diverse group of accomplished artists. Through the practice of Falun Dafa¡ªan ancient Chinese tradition of meditation and self-improvement¡ªthey have gained heath in both body and mind, deepened their grasp of the workings of nature, and found answers to a lifelong search for the greater meanings of art and life. Abiding by the way of truth, compassion, tolerance, they have witnessed their lives opening up to a process of constant renewal in which false notions and attachments molt away in favor a truer, innate self. It is a path of return, they tell, a path of recuperating a lost, higher self. In this exhibit the artists depict a vision of the world, their own first-hand experiences, and what it means to be part of the body of spiritual aspirants who seek to embody and perfect the virtues of truth, compassion, and tolerance.

The exhibit consists of four parts:
Part 1: The Beauty of Self-Cultivation
Part 2: Uncompromising Courage
Part 3: The Call for Justice
Part 4: Justice Prevails

These works poetically suggest the beauty of a life lived in keeping with a higher order¡ªa life elevated by its accord with truth, compassion, tolerance¡ªwhile depicting, in turn, the grim realities of cruel persecution that Falun Dafa has faced at the hands of China¡¯s Communist regime. In several of the latter works one finds a deep conviction in the workings of a higher, moral order, manifest as the meeting out of divine retribution. But amidst the wrenching inhumanity of torture and violence¡ªwhere freedom, dignity, and goodness seem surely eclipsed¡ªwe see ordinary people becoming extraordinary. For here, in the darkest of quarters, the power of principled belief shines forth and empowers the meek with a breadth of mind and stamina far greater than the ordeals forced upon them. Truth, compassion, tolerance is here infused in the very marrow of the wounded, making victor of victim. The message is ultimately one of hope and triumph.

Website address:   http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2005/1/19/30700.html

The Treasurer’s office rotates local artist exhibits throughout the year. Come view Scott Franklin, and the "Truth-Compassion-Tolerance" Art Exhibition in the Treasurer’s office during the month of September and October..

For exhibit information, contact Bailey Newcomb at bnewcomb@artreasury.state.ar.us.