About The Artist
J. Scott Nicol
A favorite record. A Saturday morning in front of the TV. A book you read until the cover wore out. I’m J. Scott Nicol, and I paint the things we remember.
I’ve always loved looking at other people’s bookshelves. You can learn a lot about someone from the books they keep. That’s what drew me to paint books in oils. I could put music, movies, sports, and the people who shaped our popular culture on a shelf of my own.
Many of the books in my paintings are ones I invent. I research the subject, choose the images, make up the titles, and work out how the colors and lettering will look side by side. Then I paint the details that make a book feel handled and loved: a bent corner, a crease in the spine, the way the light catches the cover.
I love watching someone look at a painting, spot a familiar detail, and tell me where it takes them. Sometimes it’s a concert. Sometimes it’s the living room they grew up in.
Oil & Icons
My book-spine paintings let me gather a whole era on a shelf. With Oil & Icons, I take one familiar object at a time and paint it as a snapshot. Gumby and Pokey, Mr. Potato Head, and the View-Master are the first three. I paint the white edge and the little shadow so the snapshot looks like something you could pick up.
I still get the same pleasure from seeing what someone remembers when they look at one of these paintings. Sometimes the smallest thing brings back the most.
Explore canvas prints · See custom commissions
