Scott Lyall

Canadian, born 1964.

Scott Lyall lives and works in Toronto and New York. His work is part of the permanent collection of National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Scott Lyall combines drawing, painting, sculpture, and found objects into what he describes as a ‘scenography without actors,’ or ‘plastic supports for an almost clientless sense of design.’ His production revolves around issues related to sculptural display, the relationships between graphic processes,and the design legacies of conceptualism. While Lyall’s earlier work involved installations created from construction and everyday materials such as particleboard, styrofoam,and other ephemeral fragments, his recent practice is predominantly comprised of graphic assemblages and printouts produced without direct mediation of an image. Referencing Bruno Latour, the artist describes his Nudesand EVEs series as “design all the way down,”a statement that resonates with Mark Rothko’s use of pigmented gessoes to achieve what he called “color all the way down.”

Originating from the basic and most abstract unit of the digital realm—the single color pixel—the pale hues of Lyall’s color wave paintings and stickersare formed through a method of mathematical interpolation that generates a unique and potentially infinite bitstream. Theresultinginformation is sent directly to the print heads, which apply sheer layers of ink such that the gradient color-deposits are mixed directly on the substrate. The immediate relationship between the numerical formula and the printer is akin to a “fauve" effect of releasing color from the received image. Embodying a movement from pure quantity—a digital field of dispersions and exchange—to form, these works are inherently split objects that exist first immaterially,and materiallyin the last instance. They address the informational fetish of recentart and the dissolution of visible signs.

Each of the works is made by compressing panels of Starphire glass and mirror. The former is imprinted on its inside surface with a unique and potentially infinite sequence of colours, all mixed to the analog range of golds. Then, these colours are infused with glue by the heat required in the laminating process. We obtain an immanent, melted, polychrome object masquerading as a monochrome. Finally, in order to complete each work, a mixture of gel and gold Nanoparticles is added to the outside surface by the artist’s hand, a gesture of symbolic vernissage. This is both to seal the interface, and to open the work to a kind of surfacing that presses to alight on the viewers’ world. 

Biography written by Miguel Abreu Gallery, NY, USA

EXHIBITIONS WITH THE GREEN ON RED GALLERY:

2023 Scales, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland

SELECTED SOLO & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2023 Scales, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin, Ireland 2023 Talents, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York 2019 Superstar, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York 2018 Cave Paintings Now, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto, Canada 2017 DRAGONS, Campoli Presti, London , Dragons. SLStudio.clones, Campoli Presti, Paris 2015 Black Glass, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York 2014 Photo Eclipse, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto, Canada , A Moveable Feast – Part X: Scott Lyall, Campoli Presti, Paris, France , οἴνοπαπόντον, Campoli Presti, London, UK 2013 Indiscretion, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York 2011 Sittlichkeit (roses/pinks), Silver Flag, Montreal, Canada , nudes 2, Campoli Presti, London, UK , nudes, Sutton Lane, Paris, France , Sutton Lane visits Klosterfelde: Liz Deschenes & Scott Lyall, Berlin, Germany , Scott Lyall/Rachel Harrison: Double Yolk, Galerie Christian Nagel, Antwerp, Belgium 2010 Art |Basel|Miami Beach – Art Nova, Miguel Abreu Gallery , An Immigrant Affection, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York , Early Video, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto, Canada , Scott Lyall & Dan Flavin, curated by Damien Airault, Le Commissariat, Paris, France , Rationalisme Applique: Blake Rayne & Scott Lyall, 1301PE, Los Angeles, CA 2008 The Color Ball, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada , Simple Agony, Sutton Lane, London, UK 2007 the little contemporaries, Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY 2006 a dancer dances, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York 2006 When Hangover Becomes Form (collaboration with Rachel Harrison) Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada , LACE, Los Angeles, CA an aaliyah, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto, Canada , Analiyah, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto, Canada 2004 The Canon Copiers, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto, Canada 2002 OK!lahoma, Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, Canada 2001 Global Refuse, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto, Canada , Scott Lyall/Josh Blackwell, Goldman/Tevis, Los Angeles, CA 1

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025 The Observatory, Fondation Giverny pot l’art contemporain, Shefford, PQ, Canada 2024 The Living End: Painting and Other Technologies, 1970 – 2020, curated by Jamillah James, MCA, Chicago 2022 Callings— i ( j - (k — l) - m ) / n, Susan Hobbs, Toronto, Canada , For the People of Paris, Campoli Presti, Paris , The Painter’s New Tools, Nahmad Contemporary, New York , Singing in Unison: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy, Part 6, Curated by Phong H. Bui and Cal McKeever, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York, NY 2020 The Poet-Engineers, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York , In the ever changing world in which we live..., curated by Maureen Mahony, The Storefront, Bellport, NY 2019 Living in a Lightbulb, curated by Jenny Jaskey and Mia Locks, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York , Living in a Lightbulb, curated by Jenny Jaskey and Mia Locks, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2016 and, something like fire dancing, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto, Canada , Ballistic Poetry, curated by Guillaume Désanges, La Verrière - Hermès Foundation, Brussels 2015 Collected by Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York , Signal Failure, Pace London, UK , Works on Paper, Greene Naftali, New York 2013 Correspondences: Ad Reinhardt at 100, curated by Alex Bacon and Harrison Tenzer, TEMP Art Space, New York , Group show, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France 2012 Anti-Establishment, curated by Johanna Burton, CCS Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY , Ghosts Before Breakfast, White Flag Projects, St. Louis, MI , Frieze New York, Miguel Abreu Gallery , I Think And That is All That I Am, Thomas Duncan Gallery, CA 2011 Art|Basel|Miami Beach – Art Galleries, Miguel Abreu Gallery , Hasta Mañana, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York , Schnitte im Raum, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany , Chopped & Screwed, MKG127, Toronto, Canada , Tentation d’Hazard, The Montreal Biennial (MTL BNL), Canada , With one color..., Van De Weghe Gallery, New York , New York to London and Back: The Medium of Contingency, Thomas Dane Gallery, London, UK 2010 Superviscous, curated by Charles Reeves, Ontario College of Art’s Professional Gallery, Toronto, Canada 2009 Breaking Ground Underground, Stonescape, Calistoga, CA , Practice vs. Object, organized by Margaret Liu Clinton, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York , Collatéral, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers, France , The Lining of Forgetting, curated by Xandra Eden, Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX , CODE SHARE: 5 continents, 10 biennials, 20 artists, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania 2008 Lucky 7, SITE Santa Fe, 7th International Biennial, SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico , Art|39|Basel – Art Premiere, with Blake Rayne, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York , The Lining of Forgetting, curated by Xandra Eden, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC 2007 Regroup Show, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York , Group, Sutton Lane c/o Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris, France , Form As Memory, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York , Massiv Analog Academy, curated by Gareth James and John Kelsey, Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne, Germany , For the People of Paris, Sutton Lane c/o Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris, France 2006 Hands Up/Hands Down, Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York , We Can Do This Now, curated by Gregory Burke and Helena Reckett, The Power Plant, Toronto, Canada 2004 Yarns, curated by John Tevis, Rubin Gallery, Seattle, WA , Scott Lyall, Roe Etheridge, Blake Rayne, Greener Pastures, Toronto, Canada 2003 Psychotopes, curated by Markus Müller, YYZ Artist’s Outlet, Toronto, Canada , Group Show, Mary Goldman Gallery, Los Angeles, CA , Scott Lyall, Brandon Latau, Cory McCorkle, Goldman Tevis Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2000 New York Projects, curated by Luke Dowd, Delfina, London, UK

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

The Walker Art Center, Minniapolis

Buffalo AKG (formerly Albright-Knox Art Gallery), Buffalo, New York

National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento, Rovereto, Italy

Pinault Collection, Paris

MORE INFORMATION:
For more information or purchase enquiries contact the gallery.