We were lucky to catch up with Scott Gengelbach recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Scott thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Ever since I can remember, the arts, in some way, have been part of my life. My grandparents were founding members of a small theater group in Los Angeles called Kentwood Players. My grandfather directed and built sets and my grandmother acted in the plays they had there. As a child the first thing I wanted to be was a movie director. When my grandfather was in the planning stages of a play he would let me read the script and he had the patience to sit down and have me explain to him how I would direct the play (only a saint would take the time to listen to the ramblings of a ten year old). My friends and I used to make stop motion animated movies with our super eight movie cameras and of course I thought that that meant that I was a “director”. Besides that, I was always doing something creative- drawing, painting, building things with Legos. My grandparents also had art books in their house that I would look through all the time. One of the books had a fold out of Bruegals “The Triumph of Death”, I would lay it out on the floor and stare at it whenever I went to their house. That painting made me understand how powerful art could be. As I moved into my teenage years I started surfing and didn’t spend as much time on other creative endeavors. I say other creative endeavors because I’ve always considered surfing a creative endeavor, I believe it to be an art form on the level of ice skating. It was my creative outlet and I would spend hours trying to hone my style to be as graceful as possible. In my mind I would always picture myself being a mixture of Tom Curren, Martin Potter and Matt Archibald. One thing I always did in high school (which turned out to be very important in my evolution as an artist) was doodle designs while I was bored in class. The designs were kind of an abstracted version of baroque patterns. I drew them all over my notebooks and and book covers. I was also really into fashion and the second thing I wanted to do with my life was be a fashion designer. Later on in life I thought of being an architect or a car designer. After I graduated high school I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do but things clicked when I took an art history class at Mesa College. That’s when i realized that I could combine the doodle/designs I always did with semi realistic imagery and that would be my art. It was like a light bulb moment, Like this is what i want to do. Now I have to say that for me being a professional artist doesn’t mean being able to make a living off my art, it just means taking it seriously and showing my art in professional venues. I’m not concerned with the money side of it in any way.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a mixed media artist and I focus mainly on collage and assemblage and lately I’ve been making a lot of videos where I play with toys (just my hands are shown), toys play a major part in my body of work. My work is political/social commentary. A lot of my work belongs to four series that are open ended- “The Search for God” which is about two teams of astronauts searching the universe in hopes of proving or disproving the existence of God, it’s the red team against the blue team.”Makes About As Much Sense As War” which consists of images and objects about war combined with random images and objects, the pieces arent supposed to make sense.”Religion Is Hard To Make Sense Of” which consists of images and objects having to do with religion combined with random images and objects, these pieces too are not meant to make sense. And “The Malfuction of the Carbon Management Sytem” which is about climate change. Recently because of the craziness that has come out of the MAGA movement I’ve started a new series called “Makes No Sense At All” which consists of totally random objects and images combined to make no sense at all. A lot of my other pieces are specific to certain issues. I don’t really think there’s anything that sets my work apart from anyone else and I’m really not looking to be original I just want to be authentic. I haven’t really achieved much as an artist but there are 3 things that I’m proud of. An article about my work written by Sheena Mallone in the now defunct magazine Artvoices., that I was in a show at The Museum of Latin American Art and that I have a solo show coming up at Centro Cultural de la Raza in May of 2024.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I have a couple thousand works that I’ve made and still have.. Most of them I don’t consider that strong on their own, there’s maybe a handful that I think can hold their own weight. I think the strength is in the body of work as a whole. I think that seeing it all together at one time would be something worth seeing, if nothing else at least to appreciate the time it took to make the amount of work. So my goal, the thing that keeps me going is that someday I would like to own a building where all the work is on permanent display. Nothing fancy, just a space to display all the work. That’s my ultimate goal. Besides that my goal is always to get the work seen. I’m commenting about the issues we face as a society and I’d like my comments to be heard. I think it’s pointless without an audience.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

The Courage To Create by Rollo May. And gems of wisdom that I’ve gotten from all the magazines and books that I’ve read about art and the videos I’ve watched about art. If you’re an artist you need to learn as much as you can about art.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.scottgengelbach.com
• Instagram: @scottgengelbach_art
• Facebook: Scott Gengelbach- Art
• Twitter: @GengelbachScott