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

Alright, Scott thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I definitely wish I had taken myself more seriously as an artist at a younger age. I didn’t get my BFA until I was 30, my MFA at 33 or 34. I felt like I was trying to catch up with artists that started down that path at a much younger age, I honestly still feel like that from time to time.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Scott Isenbarger and I am a visual artist, mostly a painter. I am originally from Indiana where there wasn’t much opportunity or encouragement to pursue a career in art. Despite my pessimism, I always excelled in creative subjects in school and was constantly drawing and writing. I knew that I was a creative person, but wasn’t sure how to use that to my advantage or how it would fit into my life. While pursuing an English degree at Indiana University I took a painting class as an elective and instantly knew that painting was a language that I understood and wanted to dedicate my life to. I took every art class I could fit into my schedule and eventually graduated with a BA in English. However after a year out of school, I re-enrolled at IU to earn my BFA in painting. When re-enrolling, I first had to take all of the prerequisite courses before I was able to apply for the BFA program. Going through the lower level courses only further proved that I was where I was supposed to be. I ate it up. All of it. The art history, theory, contemporary art, “low brow” art like comics and concert posters. I loved learning about it and the artists that made it. The fundamental studio classes were also fascinating to me, especially the subjects of anatomy and color theory. The more I learned and practiced, the more confidence I gained and soon enough, I was moving to San Francisco for a graduate degree from the eponymous and historical San Francisco Art Institute. I loved San Francisco, and still do, as the song goes, “I left my heart in San Francisco,” however it was easy to see that the climate for art in San Francisco leaned heavy into the avant-garde, performative, social practice kind. Don’t get me wrong there was and is great painting there but in the words of one of my mentors, Dewey Crumpler, “You good, but you gotta move to LA or New York after graduation.” So that’s what I did. I moved to Brooklyn in 2017 with my wife. We have recently moved North of the city and into the Hudson Valley where we share a house and studio with our dog, George, and cat, Pig.

I mostly make paintings and drawings to sell as commissions or prints, and to show in galleries, or anywhere with walls, but I’ve also done some prop work for theatre productions and for giant, lavish parties. But again, my focus is heavily in the two-dimensional world. I help my clients decorate their walls and life with beautiful or grotesque, thoughtful, or sometimes thoughtless imagery that makes them feel joy, or humor, or introspection. I feel I have a creative manner of figuration that lies somewhere between realism and cartooning, as well as a unique color palette that sets me apart. I can also be rather versatile with mark making and style of rendering, so feel apt making all different types of artworks.

I’m proud of my perseverance in the pursuit of my dream. I feel successful in the mere fact that I am still creating and think of painting and making as part of my identity. It is a habit and passion I plan on continuing without worry of the money it brings in or the accolades it offers.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I wouldn’t consider them capital A, art. I think there is a certain amount of skill and design sense that comes into play when making them, but so do memes. I prefer memes to NFTs, they seem to be more honest about what they are or something. I think NFTs are like baseball cards, or any collectible really. They can be fun but don’t have longevity. From what I’ve seen and understand, is that there certainly isn’t much creative depth or soul searching going on.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I was heavily involved with athletics for most of my young life and as a kid I was a pretty good athlete, football and basketball mostly. I probably wasn’t good enough to play professionally and was a bit of a late bloomer physically, but it was something that I wanted to continue to do in college, possibly for a scholarship. I was also somewhat interested in going into a field that revolved around sports. However, when I was 17, toward the end of my Junior year of school I contracted a very serious staph infection in my pelvis which left me pretty much bedridden for several months. Needless to say the infection affected my physical, mental, and emotional well being quite drastically. It made me face mortality at a young age and to realize that it was necessary to truly follow one’s passions. It was obvious to me that a life in the sporting world was not what I truly wanted, and that I was trying to fulfill what I thought were someone else’s expectations, or what, I thought “I should do.” I continued to play basketball, football, and baseball through my Senior of high school, but I’d lost a step and it was obvious to me. So it seemed clear that I should pivot my focus from sports to art. It was during this time that I started leaning more heavily into my creative side and decided to follow the lovely, meandering direction of that path instead.

Contact Info:

• Website: isenart.com
• Instagram: isen_kunst

Image Credits
Maxim Ryazansky