Painter Ian Charles Scott with his 4 paintings.

Two paintings by Ian Charles Scott will be on display in the Bronx Museum from March 5 to March 9. Scott is a professor in the visual arts program at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College of CUNY, and these works were selected by a curator for a special exhibition in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the New York Armory Show.

As part of “Armory Show month,” Scott’s work and that of other artists from around the world will be shown at locations throughout New York City. The exhibit has additional Hostos connections as Scott’s paintings were produced in the College’s arts studio during free periods. Moreover, it was John MacElwee, the recently appointed director of the Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture (HCAC), who recommended Scott to the Bronx Museum’s selection committee.

“Sometimes students would come and sit with me while I was working on the large compositions, and I would ask them their opinions on questions of imagery and meaning,” Scott said. “It was a good way of getting them to witness the process of producing artwork and the serious thinking that is necessary to produce something professional. Both paintings explore individual reality and the barriers one must push through to truly engage with one's spiritual being. This is especially difficult in a society that only encourages mechanistic and materialistic values and ignores inner development.”

Currently on sabbatical, Scott is working with the curator of Victory Hall: Drawing Room in Jersey City to produce two books of his paintings. One will feature portraits, and the other his larger-scale compositions.

Scott has been teaching at Hostos since 1999. In 2003 he won the top Prize in the Royal Scottish Academy exhibition, and his work entered the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery. In 2010 he was nominated for the Mayor’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Arts and Cultural Life of New York City. Over the years, his paintings have been displayed in museums in the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany.

In 2012, Scott’s painting of George Mackay Brown, Scotland’s most famous 20th century writer, was purchased by the Stromness Museum of Art to be hung above the subject’s famous rocking chair. All of Scott’s paintings that are in the Dundee Museum in Scotland were included in a BBC publication with a forward by Camilla Duchess of Cornwall.

Scott first became interested in immigrating to the United States after winning first prize in a worldwide Walt Disney art competition at the age of five. The prize was a trip to Disneyland in California, where Scott was given a tour by Walt Disney himself—and with that, an artist was born.

Back in his native Scotland, Scott received country’s highest art award, the Alastair Salvasen Scholarship, which he used to travel to the United States.

About Hostos Community College
Eugenio María de Hostos Community College is an educational agent for change that has been transforming and improving the quality of life in the South Bronx and neighboring communities since 1968. It serves as a gateway to intellectual growth and socioeconomic mobility, as well as a point of departure for lifelong learning, success in professional careers, and transfer to advanced higher education programs. The College’s unique "Student Success Coaching Unit" provides students with individualized guidance and exemplifies its emphasis on student support services.

Hostos offers 29 associate degree programs and five certificate programs that facilitate easy transfer to CUNY’s four-year colleges or baccalaureate studies at other institutions. The College has an award-winning Division of Continuing Education & Workforce Development that offers professional development courses and certificate-bearing workforce training programs. Hostos is part of The City University of New York (CUNY), the nation’s leading urban public university, which serves more than 480,000 students at 24 colleges.