About Scott Avett

Scott Avett, fine artist, musician and founding member of The Avett Brothers, has spent most of his adult life stepping out of the categories that others have used to define him. He sees his art career and his success as a musician as two sides of the same coin -- both are vital creative outlets; both are fueled by his faith. He is a truth-seeker who uses various media -- illustration, printmaking, painting, sculpture, songwriting, recording and performing -- to tell his stories.

Born in 1976 in Cheyenne, Wyoming and raised in the Piedmont of North Carolina, Avett began his painting career in 1999, when he attended East Carolina University and studied under the direction of painter Leland Wallin. There, he also studied printmaking with Michael Elhbeck. The encouragement of these mentors led Avett to complete both a BA in communications, as well as a BFA in painting.

Avett embraces the idea of artist and art in continual motion and spends almost as much time creating on the road as he does in the studio. A friend once called Avett an “Artist Hobo,” comparing his manner of producing art to the way the iconic figures from the early twentieth-century would move from place to place for work. His goal is to change methods with each new piece, believing that a small shift in technique – one less layer of paint, a thinner glaze – can create exceptional results.

Religious archetypes and stories are common themes for Avett, as are the people and places he encounters in his travels. He is drawn to figurative work and finds portraits to be the most intimate, and most immediate, form of personal narrative. He prefers to work with subjects he knows well and can work with over time, and his self-portraits reflect his comfort with a subject he calls “loyal” and “the most accessible.” In every work, Avett seeks to capture both the physicality of his subject, as well as his or her emotional life – the strengths and weaknesses, fears and phobias, and moments of courage he feels we must recognize in ourselves, and in one another.

Avett’s work has appeared at the Envoy Gallery in New York City, the Lee Hansley Gallery in Raleigh, the Center for Faith & the Arts in Salisbury, NC, as well as at the Empathinc. Gallery, formerly located in the NODA arts district of Charlotte. His studio is located in his hometown of Concord, NC, where he briefly owned his own gallery. See more of his paintings at www.scottavett.com.