Each year, thousands flock to the Memphis home of Elvis Presley, not only to pay homage, but also to marvel at the artifacts there - the jeweled jumpsuits, the gold seatbelts of the plane, the jungle room - all perfectly preserved in the extravagant 1970s time capsule of Graceland. Beginning in 2000, with the cooperation of the Elvis Presley estate, artist Jeff Scott gained unparalleled access to Elvis's personal possessions and property to create a complex portrait of the music legend through his belongings. Scott goes beyond the kitsch to resurrect the ultimate American icon, revealing the humanity of Elvis behind the recognizable celebrity veneer. These artifacts are loaded with subtext that contain clues to uncovering deeper aspects of Elvis's character. Indeed, Presley's possessions span the distance between his materialistic persona and his private reality, and Scott's keen eye for detail takes us on a unique tour through the estate.
Elvis's driver's license, at once a banal Tennessee document and a charged remainder of the celebrity idol, raises larger questions of identity. The way Scott juxtaposes Elvis's gun collection and vanity police badges reveals a fundamental rift between Presley's rebellious reputation and his private obsession with police and authority. The gold bedside telephone, the TV with a bullet hole through the screen, and the travel trunk filled with scarves still in their dry-cleaning plastic provide a rare portrayal of Elvis's inner life, placing the public man in an intimate context. Throughout, Scott explores our complex relationship with modern celebrity culture and the ways our possessions and material objects outlive us to tell our story.
Scott's first book, Elvis: The Personal Archives was released worldwide by Channel Photographics on November 1, 2005. Gallery Soco is pleased to announce the release of two new large works on paper featuring Scott's ongoing series exploring the inner life of Elvis: "Visionary" and "Thumbprint." These photogravure works debuted to the public in November 2005.
Scott has been in the studio producing a dramatic new series of abstract photographic works entitled BETWEEN MIDNIGHT. This series of large chromogenic and photogravure prints, along with an upcoming film installation series, highlights our urban culture and shared anxieties, unveiling a gritty Los Angeles film noir. Dealing with cinematic narrative elements, image fragments and collage, these photographic works reveal themselves to be complex and evocative physical objects in and of themselves.
Scott has exhibited widely in the United States, and his work is in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art and the Smithsonian
Institution, as well as Elvis Presley Enterprises, Disneyland, Polo Ralph Lauren, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Portions of his series based on Elvis's personal archives were exhibited at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.
Each year, thousands flock to the Memphis home of Elvis Presley, not only to pay homage, but also to marvel at the artifacts there - the jeweled jumpsuits, the gold seatbelts of the plane, the jungle room - all perfectly preserved in the extravagant 1970s time capsule of Graceland. Beginning in 2000, with the cooperation of the Elvis Presley estate, artist Jeff Scott gained unparalleled access to Elvis's personal possessions and property to create a complex portrait of the music legend through his belongings. Scott goes beyond the kitsch to resurrect the ultimate American icon, revealing the humanity of Elvis behind the recognizable celebrity veneer. These artifacts are loaded with subtext that contain clues to uncovering deeper aspects of Elvis's character. Indeed, Presley's possessions span the distance between his materialistic persona and his private reality, and Scott's keen eye for detail takes us on a unique tour through the estate.