Scott Myles explores cyclicality and repetition at Quartz Studio in Turin

Scott Myles (Dundee, 1975) presents his third solo exhibition in Turin at Quartz Studio, titled "Potential for a Wish (as yet unmade)." The show centers on themes of cyclicality and repetition through a large-scale work on paper, a silkscreen edition, and a site-specific oil painting composed of six narrow rectangular canvases. The painting depicts a rope in livid blue-green tones with a single trace of red, referencing the woodcuts of shin-hanga artist Hasui Kawase, whose parents owned a thread and rope business. The failure of that family business freed Kawase to pursue art, making the rope a metaphor for escape. Myles also alludes to Barnett Newman's vertical dividers, Constantin Brâncuși's "Endless Column" (1938), and Maurizio Cattelan's "Fuga" (1992). The rope filaments evoke both sinister objects like the tournament lance piercing monsters in depictions of Saint George and the Dragon by Carlo Crivelli (1470), Vittore Carpaccio (1502), and Raphael (circa 1505), as well as candy—twisted sweets, colorful marshmallows, and candy canes—symbols of childhood and festivity that create a short circuit with the cyanotic tones. The exhibition balances intellectual formality, anti-capitalist social critique, and euphoric, fierce playfulness on the edge of a dark precipice.