"The only thing I can say with any confidence about my perception is that it is rooted in the co-existence of my absolute insignificance and relative significance in relation to others and to the environment in which I evolve. All of my photographic and new media work deals with this duality and the uncertainty it generates about who I am and what I think and feel. This need not constitute a reason for inaction, for we can be riddled with doubts of all kinds and in some strange way, feel confident about working through them.
To me, life, like art, is one long balancing act whether we acknowledge it or not and the more curious we are and the more risks we take, the more we are able to perceive the multiple vectors of interference that disturb our existence as sources of growth and development bringing a much-needed semblance of balance to what is, in reality, a permanent state of disequilibrium."
Thoughts on the Creative Process
SCOTT MACLEAY: Canadian new media artist / composer / writer
Scott MacLeay began his career in Vancouver , Canada in the mid-70s and lived in France and worked in Paris and New York for thirty years before moving to Florianópolis in 2010. The first important phase of his photographic work stretched from the end of the 1970s to the beginning of the 1990s, at which time he began devoting himself full-time to contemporary music composition for contemporary dance, video art and his research group PRIVATE CIRCUS in addition to audio-visual consultancy work for international AV projects. During this period, his photographic work was represented by Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery ( NYC ) and CREATIS Galerie (Paris) and exhibited widely in select private galleries and museums in Europe, North America and Japan : Musée d' Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (France), Museum of Art and History of Fribourg (Switzerland), Münchner Stadt Museum (Germany), Rencontres d' Arles photographiques (France), the Space Gallery (NYC), AO Gallery (Tokyo), The American Center for Artists (Paris), Ton Peek Gallery (Amsterdam), among others. Since moving to Brazil, he has exhibited at the Badesc Foundation, the Museum of Art of Santa Catarina, at the Lindolf Bell Gallery (CIC) and the Galeria Boiteux in Florianópolis.
His photographic work has been widely published and documented in France, the USA and Brazil : Art Magazine, Art in America , Clichés, Zoom, Camera Arts, Empreintes, Photo Magazine, among other publications. He was named Rockefeller Foundation artist in residence at the American Center for Artists for the creation of the multimedia exhibition " Fragments , Cycles, Sounds " in 1982, produced for the Biennial “Mois de La Photo” in Paris. The same year , his work was included in the Time-Life History of Photography, in the volume dedicated to the "Art of Photography”. His work is included in the permanent collections of museums such as the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas, USA and has been used by the latter to promote the permanent collection of over 60000 pieces of modern and contemporary art work.
In addition to his exhibition work, he founded the Photography Department of the American Center for Artists in Paris and became Director of its Center for Media Art and Photography (CMAP) in the mid-'80s, creating an international crossroads of exchange and creation whose activities included the organization of exhibitions, festivals, co -productions, seminars and educational programs in the technological arts. The CMAP was the avant-garde hub of media art activities and audiovisual productions working with the most important French institutions (Centre Pompipou, Musée d' Orsay, Canal +, Arte, La Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie).
In 1988 he left the analogue photographic world to devote himself full-time to musical composition for contemporary dance creations of American and French choreographers, video art creations and for his musical research group Private Circus. Several albums of Private circus were released, including one of his contemporary cabaret opera “Les petites Foules (Small Crowds) and a compilation of several of his works for contemporary dance The Other Side of the Story (consult listing of works).
In the early 2000s, he began audiovisual project concepton, development and consulting activities in France and China collaboration withe french AV producer Patrick Besenval (XLargo, Paris) and Chinese architect/designer/artist Dr. Tao Ho (Hong Kong/Bejing/Shanghai). This activity led to his engagement as auditor / project analist for several major government AV cultural projects in the Champagne-Ardennes region of France. This, in turn, led to his exploration of digital photographic imagey from 2005 onwards.
Since moving to Florianópolis in 2010, he has dedicated himself to producing digital photographic and new media work, in addition to continuing his passion for sharing his experiences through teaching. In late 2011, he founded the Creative Process, a movement dedicated to the promotion and development of innovative work in the technological arts. In the context of this movement, he has conducted various workshops in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Tiradentes, Curitiba and Florianópolis. Since 2017 he has focuse dmuch of his work on video-based performane art and interactivity. His video works have won awards at festivals worldwide including festivals in Paris, Berlin, Milan, London, Los Angeles and Hong Kong.
His curatorial experience dates form the early 80s when he was responsible for curating 6 consecutive exhibitions for the American Center for Artists during the Festival d’Arles in France. Since moving to Brazil, he curated 2 group exhibitions in Florianópolis in 2014: Interferências: Scott Macleay and Guests at the Lindolf Bell Gallery (CIC) and PERSPECTIVA(S) at the Helena Fretta Galeria de Arte. In 2015, he was responsible for curating the exhibition “Hotel Esplêndido”, of artist Laura de Avelar Fonseca at the Museu Inima de Paula, in Belo Horizonte and at MuMA (Museu Metropolitano of Art) in Curitiba, Brazil (winner of the Funarte’s 2014 Marc Ferrez Photographic Prize in Brazil) and of the exhibition "Ondas de Luz" of artist Marco Giacomelli at the Bienal de Curitiba at MuMA. In 2016, he curated the exhibition "Danças de Luz" of painter/new media artist Flávia Tronca at the Casa de Cultura in Caxias do Sul, Brazil and the exhibition "Sobre Águas" of Marco Giacomelli at the Museum of Image and Sound of Santa Catarina in Florianópolis and at MuMA in Curitiba, Brazil. From 2017 to the present day he has continued to curate exhibitions for Brazilian artists Ruchita, Gilma Mello and Roni Munk at the Institute International Juarez Machado in Joinville, as well as for exhibtions at the Gallery Lindolf Bell in Florianópolis and the Centro Helio Oiticica in Rio de Janeiro (consult complete listing).
His book of essays “PENSAR, SENTIR, VER – Percepção e Processo em Fotografia” was launched in March 2015 by the Brazilian publisher Editora Photos with events at the SESC Santana São Paulo, the Festival de Fotografia de Tiradentes and the Centro Europeu in Curitiba. His book QUADRICHROMIE 1978-1988, published in 2018 by CREATIVE PROCESS, traces the evolution of his early colour work undertaken in Vancouver and Paris - work that secured his status as an innovator in the field of colour photography. In 2020, his interactive book "Encounters in the Right and Left Hemispheres" was published by CREATIVE PROCESS. It represented the first stage of a three-part interactive performance art-based project dealing with relationship development. Stage two, an interactive online site permitting non-linear exploration form different perspectives was inaugurated in January 2021(https://encounters-right-left-hemispheres.online). In March 2022, he published two new books: “Thoughts On …”, a collections of short reflections on a variety of contemporary topics in the field of economics, culture, politics, ethics and psychology and “Futility as Rebirth”, a collection of illustrations and poems/theatrical scenes juxtaposed to provoke thoughts on how incoherence and absurd situations can constitute productive, relevant inspiration. In 2023 he completed work on a book compiling a representative selection of all his photographic, video and interactive work undertaken between 2010 and 2023 in Brazil entitled TROPICAL INTERFERENCE. The book was launched in 2024.
Pacific Northwest First Nations Child © 1976 Scott MacLeay
This was one of a series of 8 photographs taken of a Pacific Northwest First Nations child and her mother on Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver in 1976. It was the first complete series of work undertaken by MacLeay since beginning his photographic adventure in 1975.