Although he was born in Oklahoma City and raised in Texas, Scott Ogden now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He received a BFA from the University of Texas in Austin, spent a summer in Maine attending the Skowhegan Artist Residency program, and then came to New York to get his MFA at Queens College.
In this series of drawings, he has restricted himself to using one of the simplest types of mark making possible- short, straight lines. While this may sound incredibly limited, the forms that evolve are both highly intuitive and extremely complex. They all tend to grow organically and without much thought; in a sense, mimicking the concept of a doodle. In each, there is a sense of structure vs. chaos, negative vs. positive, and intentionality vs. stream of consciousness at play.
Aside from his own art making, he has been extremely interested in the world of self-taught art for nearly two decades. In the year 2008, he completed the documentary, MAKE, after almost ten years of filming and editing. This film chronicles the lives and art of Prophet Royal Robertson, Hawkins Bolden, Judith Scott, and Ike Morgan. He has also recently started up a skateboard company that will treat deck graphics as works of art and incorporate imagery from both self-taught and contemporary artists.
See article in New York Times about MAKE documentary.
