Scott Myles

Scott Myles' practice is deeply gestural and encompasses a wide range of mediums, including sculpture, painting, printmaking, artist's books, photography, and performance-based projects. Through this diverse array of mediums, he engages in a process of reactivating ideas concerning the value of art and social reality, often by repurposing established codes.

Biography of Scott Myles

Scott Myles is a Scottish artist born in Dundee in 1975 and based in Glasgow. In 1995, he was an Exchange to Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. In 1997, he received 1st Class BA (Hons) in Fine Art Drawing & Painting from the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in Dundee.

In 1998, Myles attended two terms of weekly MFA seminars with Ken Lum at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

The artist has received several awards and accolades, including the Pat Holmes Memorial Prize (1994), the Cross Trust Arts Vacation Award (1997), the Glasgow City Council Visual Arts Grant (2000), the Visual Artists Award from the Scottish Arts Council (2008), the Bet Low Trust Award (2016), the Frances S. Pollard Fund (2016 and 2019), the Hope Scott Trust (2021), the Open Fund Award (2022), and many more. 

His recent solo exhibitions include "No Words" at The Modern Institute in Glasgow (2024), "Potential for a Wish (as yet unmade)" at Quartz Studio in Turin (2023), "Painting for Breakfast" at Penthouse in Margate, and "Amber Room" at Meyer Riegger in Karlsruhe (2019).

Scott Myles has also participated in numerous group shows held at prestigious venues worldwide, including Glasgow Print Studio, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, 80WSE Gallery, Jessica Silverman Gallery, Shandy Hall Gallery, Patricia Fleming Projects, Foundation Lafayette, Temple Bar Gallery, among others. 

Currently, the artist lives and works in Glasgow.

Scott Myles' Art Style

In his early works, Myles explored themes of circulation, exchange, and value. For instance, in a notable performance in 1999, he intervened into corporate culture by transforming newspaper kiosks into lending libraries. Myles appropriated publications from a chain store and redistributed them to various locations of the same retailer, without causing any financial loss to the company.

Since 2008, following the global recession, Myles has embarked on numerous projects and sculptures that serve as allegories for symbols now reduced to ruins. These creations vary from large-scale sculptural works to dematerialized artworks strategically placed in site-specific locations, including galleries, department stores, and outdoor settings.

Myles' latest paintings center on a pictorial motif that simultaneously echoes the canvas stretcher frame, creates an illusion of the picture as a perspectival window, and hints at the ominous presence of a gibbet or gallows.