Scott Chasse combines early American folk art motifs with modern themes to create paintings that are at once familiar and otherworldly. Fascinated by barn adornments like hex signs and quilts, his work often incorporates geometric shapes. "There's a fuzzy space between craft and fine art that interests me and influences what I'm making," he says.
Chasse painted Range Life for an exhibition last year to raise funds for a skate park in his hometown of Amesbury, Massachusetts. The show was held at a local record store, and it was requested that the artwork be 12-by-12 inches, the size of an LP album cover. "Skateboarding played a big role in me becoming an artist," he says. "I spent a lot of time at that skate park and was happy to contribute. My painting was a part of a UFO series. Since it had cows being abducted, I borrowed the title from a song by the band Pavement."
Like many artists, Chasse is driven to create almost out of necessity. "Hashing out an idea and building something new keeps me going. I enjoy homing in on a certain aspect of human nature and exploring it. The UFO series stems back to the idea of the unknown. It's how we deal with questions that I keep circling back to lately," he explains.
Throughout his work, Chasse tries to convey a sense of wonder and curiosity. He hopes viewers will ask questions about the paintings, him as an artist, UFOs, or themselves. He also organizes exhibitions every few months at Calico, an art space in Brooklyn that he manages remotely. "This occupies my mind for much of my day, so when it comes time to paint, I'm ready to focus. There needs to be an honest feeling of inspiration when I paint," Chasse says.
On April 21, an exhibition of Chasse's UFO paintings, "Friends in Higher Places," opens at the Woodstock Artists Association and Museum (WAAM). The show will be up through June 4. He was chosen for a solo exhibit based on earlier paintings in the series that combine elements of landscape, geometry, and spatial tension. "Some pieces feel flat, using hard-edged line work and monochromatic backgrounds, almost like a screen print. Other pieces involve experiments with dark and light, creating a sense of depth. All of the paintings are on unstretched canvas so you can see the raw edge of the material. This is deliberate, making the artwork feel a bit lighter, more like a tapestry," he says.
Chasse has been working on a companion series in which he incorporates UFO imagery into paintings he finds at thrift stores. These are often available at Shop Little House in downtown Woodstock. He lives just outside the village, in the hamlet of Willow, and his house is surrounded by forest with stunning views of the night sky. "It's hard to look up and not wonder," Chasse says.
