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Oil painter brings a well-travelled eye to Qualicum Beach

New artist showing in The Gallery at Qualicum Arts Supply
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Globe-trotting artist Michael Anthony Scott is the newest addition at The Gallery at Qualicum Art Supply, with 12 paintings for sale. — Adam Kveton

The new painter showing in The Gallery at Qualicum Art Supply is bringing a wealth of world-traveling experience to bear in his art.

Michael Anthony Scott was born in Carlisle, England but has worked and travelled through various spots throughout the globe, including Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Spain, Greece and France.

Interested in art from a young age, Scott didn’t begin his artistic career until much more recently when surgery left him stranded in London.

“I said, ‘Well you’ve always said you were going to get serious with your art when you get old,’ and I went, ‘You’re old.’ So I started drawing like 30, 40 hours a week for three or four years when I lived in Redding,” said Scott. “And then I moved to Sweden in 2006 and I started painting there.”

Though he did some water colour work there, he said he’s settled on oil since.

“You really have to have a plan and you start on them (water colour work) from lights to darks,” he said. “The other ones you can go any way you want.”

Scott had some success selling his work to the Swedish Art Museum, and has exhibited work in Parksville before, but is showing in Qualicum Beach for the first time with 12 pieces.

With his art, Scott draws heavily upon his travels, but aims to have people connect with the work in their own way.

“I’m trying to get a feeling so that somebody can find something in their life in it, even if it’s just a peaceful scene or a person or a smile,” he said.

“If you remember a day as a writer, if you’re good, people can taste and feel, and in a painting, hopefully you can feel a movement… yeah, art is to move people.”

Scott is self-taught, and said he hopes to always be learning more.

“There are 100,000 things you need to know, and if you know 50,000 it’s going to look pretty tacky, and if you know 80,000 you are getting there, but it’s just every little detail that counts,” he said.

“With my paintings, you’ll see more, the more you look.”

Artwork at The Gallery at Qualicum Art Supply, located at 206 First Ave. West, changes every few months.