Bart Scantlin (REZ): Bio

Funky, classy, unruly, artistic, and creative.

- Just a few words that I would use to help describe me.

I am proud to consider myself an artist. My art, which includes writing, video, illustration and computer graphic imagery, has a spiritual basis to it, to say the least. Religion, philosophy, spiritual teachings have been my main subject of interest ever since I can remember. Writing & illustration was my first creative outlet. I wrote stories that were highly influenced by Christian beliefs & prophesy. Such as 2nd Revelations, the story about a man's revelation of the impending Apocalypse. Other stories, I planned yet never completed had such titles as: The Devils Bible (the Devils attempt at making a modern day Bible cognized through his followers and the battle that ensued by those wishing to see it not be completed, four chapters were completed). Silence of the God, My Heaven, My Hell, Declaration Day, & Sarcasm’s of Treasure. These stories and others, served to propel my imagination in an active storyline of daydreaming.  I imagined their conception, but wasn't able to fully see them through.  Short stories I had more success with, such as: The Magic Man, Little Man's World, & Forsaken Love which was inspired by the Film: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me). These stories had themes of loss and redemption, the desire to communicate effectively and love trials and tribulations.

(1990- 1993) Other more recent stories, I Opened My Eyes & A Brand New Pair of Eyes, have the theme of characters life's being transformed by seeing circumstances through a new perspective, giving life a new vibrancy to it. The transformation isn't necessarily spiritual, such as in I Opened My Eyes, where Cindy, an atheist has a baby and decides to name him Jesus due to a vision she had on LSD the night of his conception. Her change comes about through realizing that her life may be messed up for various reasons, yet her baby (Jesus) is her little miracle. Another story, that shared this theme, To Awake the Dream, about a man who awoke from his everyday office routine to re-discover his childhood dream of living in tune with nature, in a deep secluded forest.

My poetry, with themes of dark, desolation and/or glorious love and transcendence, such as Soothing Darkness, Ill Doctor & Hearts of Fire, are rich in spirit and deep feeling. My inspirations and influences in writing have come from Kahlil Gibran, Carl Jung, the Bible, the Veda's, dreams, philosophy, art, TV, films, soap opera's and cartoons.

(1994) In College, I explored interests in painting, sculpture and furniture design. But I didn't have much confidence with my ability in these areas. I began attending the Kansas City Art Institute, and for the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged. Computer Art was a new, growing field of discovery. I explored the many ways light and color could be composed in abstract form. I began a series I called the Aethyreal Fire, based on new & imaginative ideas of the astral world, where everything was composed of light. During this time I also got an interest in Film and Video. Though film wasn't a practical medium due to its high cost. I made a two-minute video called Defiantly Abstract. I then began focusing on a project for a documentary video class I was taking. I called it, Fighting Normal. I got a lot of help from friends and family for the making of this video. It dealt with my dislike for the normal, domestic everyday circumstances, which keep a person from evolving into something better. In it, I search for my true Self, and at the end, through all the crazy situations, I find my Self.

 (1995) I then went on to a more psychedelic phase (influenced by Carl Jung, Grateful Dead) and did a couple of video's called the Mesh of Time. My attempt at saying, time blurs into the infinite, and what mystics commonly say, 'we are one'.

 (1996) I left the Kansas City Art Institute and decided I wanted something new, something spiritual. I moved to Fairfield, Iowa and attended Maharishi International University, where I learned Transcendental Meditation. I also was now surrounded by many people, with a common, spiritual interest. Needless to say, this opened my mind a little bit.

(1998) I had the idea to write a story, which I called the Procession. I wanted to make it into a screenplay, in order to make it a movie. During some time of deep meditation at a retreat called Heavenly Mountain (in North Carolina, affiliated with the Maharishi University) I cognized much of the story for my screenplay. So essentially, I had the blue print, the hard work, would be to make it into a screenplay. But school was coming to an end, I would be graduating soon. I had many things on my mind, and many ideas of what I could do after school. I and two other students had a BFA show at the University Gallery. There I showed work from The Ethereal Fire and a few others, including a short animation called, In Heaven, We Are In Love.

(1999) I graduated with a B.F.A. in Digital Media. I then moved to Athens, GA. After little luck finding a good job, learning about 'the real world', I was broke, and a year later, moved back to Kansas City.

 (2001) I move in to my own house in Midtown Kansas City. I was working on two or three different series of computer artworks. One was my take on oriental art. Another had to deal with dreams and spiritual symbols in a series I called Soul Silhouettes; subtleties of form, immersed in Pure Light (white) to intermediate Grays and then to Darkness (black). Glimpses of Archetypes surrounded by their counterparts & like symbols. Vague and blurred like dreams, subtle in their ethereal space.

(2002- Present)  I’m doing freelance design & photography work for Kansas City Photographers .  I'm also working towards a Graduates Degree in Graphic Design from Kansas University.

My current and longstanding artistic influences are Surrealism, David Lynch, Kahlil Gibran, Walt Whitman, Salvador Dali, Carl Jung, Aldous Huxley, Taoism, beautiful women, good movies, lucid dreams, deep meditation and spontaneous epiphanies.

 

-- CONTACT - BART SCANTLIN