Hi.

          I'm Scott Barrow, an Arizona born, University of Central Florida educated artist. Now it's time for me to write something about my art. Admittedly, I usually avoid this at all costs, but this is my website, my space, and you have the option to not read it, so here goes. This is a difficult thing for me to do, because there is an exponential number of factors to take into account when I think about my art. In other words, one idea becomes many, each of those becomes many on their own.

          So, to simplify (or more likely complicate), I'll just start with my view of perception. Art is at the very least the representation of the artist's perception of something. Anything. Whatever the work is a representation of, whether that be emotion, object, color, space, time, nothing, the art itself, whatever.

          That brings up my next question--what is MY perception of the world I live in? This is really more my definition of perception itself. Well, not to state the obvious, but perception is the world I live in, and I alone experience. Experience, that is, through a filter. What makes anyone's life unique next to another is the filter, themselves. Everyone sees what noone else will ever see, feels what noone else will ever feel, and thinks thoughts that only they can fully appreciate and understand...or not.

          Think about your day. What is the world to you? A few square miles? A stretch of highway? A head full of environmental stimuli, memories and ideas. We KNOW the rest of the world is out there, but only as memory, or at least common sense. In my life, the only part of the world that matters is the one directly in front of me. I don't have the power to make decisions that affect the world, or anyone except those I directly interact with. I'm just a mammal wandering around, hanging out, wondering around, doing my thing. I wonder why I am capable of wondering at all.

          Consciousness, blessing and curse. Look around you. Look at everything you can see. Listen to the sounds, smell the smells, touch what you can right now. Imagine that nothing else exists. This is how I destroy myself. If nothing outside of my perceived area exists, then how can I POSSIBLY exist? I dissappear, but am still here.

          I live and evolve in a constantly changing, three dimensional painting. Knowing myself is like trying to know everything. Impossible. It may be the lazy approach, but I am content knowing nothing. I have little interest in trying to climb a ladder with infinite rungs, just to fall off once I have exhausted myself. But don't let me mislead you, I am not ignorant to the world around me. I absorb knowledge, pointless as it may be. I learn and teach. I vote. But one day it will all be gone. Of what there is to know, I know nothing.

          Dark? Grim? It's true, if only to me. TO ME. That's the point. So what does all this rambling have to do with my art? Everything.

          My art could be defined as: A picture of our world painted through the eyes of someone who loves it part of the time, hates it part of the time, but isn't sure if it even exists.

          When I say "I am" I think of memories, experiences, ideas, emotions. But maybe "I am" just a lump of matter floating around in an infinite universe of empty nothingness. So why bother? Why create? Why destroy? Because. . . sometimes. . . it's fun!