Contributed by Sharon Butler / In September, Two Coats of Paint welcomes Scott Wolniak, a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist working primarily as a painter, with occasional forays into sculpture, video, and curatorial projects. Scott has taught for many years in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. The outdoor world, from the vastness of the American West to the defiant weeds that push through cracks in city sidewalks, have shaped his aesthetic since childhood. Observing natural forms across different distances leads him to imagine intricate systems extending beyond immediate perception. Like much of Terry Winters’ work, Wolniak’s paintings hint at hidden biological and geological processes.
In terms of process, Scott builds spatial structures through improvised drawing, then develops them with layered applications of color, texture, and pattern. He has two connected practices: observing the natural world at various scales and intensive meditation – an approach that recalls Agnes Martin, whose earthy grids and bands emerged in part from a search for inner calm. The repetition and variation of forms create rhythm, while loose improvisation keeps Wolniak’s work fresh. Spirals and concentric circles evoke cycles of growth and transformation, and a sense of connection between the individual and the universe. Writing in Artforum about a gonzo solo show mounted during a more sardonic period, Michelle Grabner flagged his penchant for artwork ostensibly distressed by projectiles and bricks but landed pensively on a quieter piece suggesting “a dried-up riverbed” whose nemesis was “none other than the passage of time.”
It is indeed landscape, with its subtle beauty and strange details, that remains a constant source of renewal for Wolniak, evoking humor and wonder as well as a sense of spiritual transcendence. In a 2023 review in the Chicago Reader, the city’s legendary alternative newspaper, critic Alan Pocaro suggested that the paintings create “a spectral realm between dreaming and waking … worlds to wander and lose yourself in.” Now accompanying that visual pleasure is the dread brought on by climate change – a paradoxically “tender brutality” has been noted in his sculptural work – which increasingly inflects art informed by landscape. Not unlike Fred Tomaselli, whose crazy hallucinatory patterns at once hold wonder and unease, Wolniak in his paintings wrestles the two opposing phenomena into something affirmative.
Scott Wolniak Two Coats of Paint Artist Residency, 22-19 41st Avenue, 6th Floor, Studio #10, Long Island City, NY. Sept 13–18, 2026. Open Studio: Wednesday, Sept 16, 5–7 pm. For more info or to schedule a visit, email STAFF@twocoatsofpaint.com with STUDIO VISIT in the subject.
Upcoming Curatorial Projects:
“Video Things from Chicago, 1995–2015,” a historically informed but deliberately subjective look at a particular period in Chicago’s experimental art scene, when video became an inexpensive, accessible, and widely adopted medium for artists working outside conventional media categories. Confirmed artists: Paul Dickinson, Julia Hechtman, Charles Irvin, Paul Nudd, Jennifer Reeder, Kirsten Stoltmann, Ben Stone, and Selina Trepp. 65Grand Gallery, 3252 W. North Avenue, Chicago, IL. March–May 2027.
“Portals,” co-curated by Pia Singh and Scott Wolniak. An exhibition that draws on a constellation of themes associated with the South Asian Tantric tradition of painting as a point of departure for exploring the embodied and energetic dimensions of both the creation and reception of art. Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts Gallery, University of Chicago, 915 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL. October 2027–January 2028
Studio playlist:
Music – Bandcamp, AppleMusic, cassettes, CDs
Laraaji, Bitchin Bajas, Animal Collective and spin offs, Jeff Parker, Sam Prekop, Bonnie Prince Billy, Big Thief, Aldous Harding, Tucker Zimmerman, ’70s era Grateful Dead shows, SML, Ana Roxanne, ear
Podcasts – 10% Happier, Living Clarity, Jack Kornfield Heart Wisdom, Ram Dass Here and Now, Joseph Goldstein Insight Hour, Enneagram 2.0, Fela Kuti, Fear No Man, Radio Atlantic, The Daily, Ezra Klein, The Nation Podcasts, Pod Save America, The New Yorker Political Scene, NPR Politics, The Climate Pod
About the Author: Sharon Butler is a painter, the publisher of Two Coats of Paint, and director of the Two Coats Residency Program.
