Art Talk with Scott Rankin

Scott Rankin will present an Art Talk on Friday, February 3 at 6 pm discussing his current exhibition Thin Deep Ribbon - photography of the sky.

For several years Scott Rankin has been photographing the sky- zooming up from the ground or floating within from an airplane window seat. As a visual artist and pilot drawn to the sky’s constantly changing depths, colors, forms, and sensations, Rankin has taken tens of thousands of still images and videos. In this small selection, he presents clouds creating abstracted space. Exploring flatness and depth, scale and light, ambiguous shape and human recognition, each unique image surprises and inspires awe. Rankin writes:

The sky is the source of air, light, moisture, and energy.

It illuminates and reflects the land.

It is an essential component of the “landscape”.

Although it is very thin, it is deep.

You can lose yourself in it.

The sky is a place with many places within it.

It is always with you and yet far.

It is a place we want to go to.

It is three-dimensional yet two-dimensional.

It is always different and the same.

In the past one hundred years or so,

we have been privileged to dwell there for precious moments,

accumulating, if we are lucky, a few hundred or thousand hours.

Scott Rankin is a Professor of Art at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards and his work has been published and exhibited worldwide.