Richard T Scott
Works of the artist
Richard T Scott
Biography
Art lets us escape, while helping us return to ourselves.
Biarritz, France — Fantastic Refuge, a two-person exhibition by Savannah artists Richard T. Scott and Jordan Nobuko Baker, opens June 6 at Galerie L’Oeil du Prince. Partners in life and art, this exhibition melds two distinct but philosophically aligned practices. The exhibition presents new work that engages contemporary questions of identity, value, and cultural meaning through the living language of classical painting – asking timeless questions: Who are we? How did we get here? And where are we going?
Scott’s work draws on historical and mythological imagery to examine our American identity crisis and its internal contradictions. Grounded in Enlightenment thought, his paintings examine ideals such as truth, reason, equality, and individual freedom, testing their durability in a fragmented, post-truth culture. Executed with dramatic chiaroscuro, Rococo frivolity, and complex figuration, Scott’s paintings reframe canonical narratives to interrogate power, race, and cultural myth. Vive la Résistance, depicts Napoleon’s historically documented rout by thousands of rabbits during a celebratory hunt — rendered as allegory for the capacity of community to expel enthroned power. Dawn’s Early Light presents a chimpanzee wrapped in the American flag, howling before a dusky landscape, black smoke billowing on the horizon. Apollo: The Age of Reason depicts Apollo as a beautiful black man, challenging the iconography of cultural origins. His paintings are held in museum and private collections in North America, Europe, and Asia, situating this body of work within an ongoing institutional dialogue.
Baker’s paintings update the Dutch Baroque tradition, using still life to explore mortality, transience, and cycles of renewal. Her compositions—flowers, fruit, and a deer skull (symbolizing her late father) rendered with precision and luminosity—draw from both 17th-century vanitas and her Japanese and Chinese heritage. Informed in part by her Shinto grandmother’s experience of internment during WWII, her work reflects on impermanence and the ways the value of a human life is assigned and denied. Messenger of the Gods combines gold leaf with the traditions of Japanese screen painting and Tang Dynasty horses, weighing competing expressions of her cultural heritage. Gold leaf was often employed in Buddhist art, shrines, and traditional crafts as a symbol of purity and divine mercy, edifying aesthetic value above mere monetary worth.
Developed over seven years, this body of work represents a focused and evolving contribution to contemporary still life painting. Jordan Baker holds a BFA in Art History from Syracuse University and an MFA in mixed media from SUNY Albany. Her work is held in museum and private collections in North America and Asia.
Together, Scott and Baker position classical painting as an evolving language rather than a historical tradition—one capable of translating beyond western culture, carrying complex meaning, and illuminating truth in this digital dark age. Classical aesthetics remain relevant not as nostalgia, but as our human inheritance – a durable framework for thinking and surviving the volatility of contemporary life.
While Fantastic Refuge engages themes of instability and uncertainty, it is ultimately grounded in an optimistic project: asserting that works of art, made by the human hand and heart, can envision and inspire a better future.
Fantastic Refuge runs June 6 through July 1, 2026. Opening reception: Saturday, June 6, 6:00 PM at Galerie L’Oeil du Prince, 3 Avenue du Maréchal Foch, 64200 Biarritz, France.