Scott VanderVoort’s residency at the Thomas VanDyke Sculpture Garden continues his exploration of balance, perception, and the quiet beauty found within geometric constraint. Working within a self-created visual language, an ‘alphabet’ derived from the relationship between a circle and a square, VanderVoort distills form to its essence. His practice, rooted in a process of reduction and transformation, began with a simple architectural cinder block he encountered in Bali. By gradually altering its structure, he uncovered new possibilities of shape and space, shifting perception and revealing an unexpected elegance in the familiar.

Scott’s sculptures and paintings exist within this refined framework, where form and material engage in a dynamic interplay. Whether stacked, arranged in linear sequences, or expanded into complex compositions, each work invites contemplation from all angles. The residency offers an opportunity to experience the full dimensionality of VanderVoort’s practice, where painted surfaces and sculptural structures echo the same fundamental inquiry. It’s a chance for artist and audience to interact with his work in an outdoor space, allowing the sculptures and the space to age, react, and evolve according to the temperament of nature and the structured notion of design. The space will go through many alterations, iterations, and transformations throughout the next year. Through this cohesive approach, he extends an invitation for viewers to engage with their own sense of balance, awareness, and discovery.

Scott VanderVoort is a New York based artist currently developing and evolving his artistic language across paper, canvas, wood, mirror and stone as a resident of Art Cake in Brooklyn, New York. Since fully committing to his art practice in 2021, his work has been shown internationally, including two solo shows, while executing private commissions across the U.S.

 Scott’s prior professional life spanned various design disciplines including industrial design, interior design and architecture, working both as Designer and Creative Director. A passionate educator, Scott served as adjunct Associate Professor of Industrial Design at Pratt Institute for twenty years, where he was a teacher, curator and contributor to departmental and institutional initiatives, and led immersive creative workshops at progressive creative institutions around the world including Samsung Art + Design Institute in Seoul, Korea and BambooU in Bali, Indonesia. He has a BA in Industrial Design with Honors from Pratt Institute.

Artist Statement 

“My recent work explores themes of beauty, order and perception. I focus on capturing and formalizing our connection to ‘balance’ and how one might achieve this through the use of positive and negative spatial conditions. My works are built from a self-created Alphabet which contrasts a circle to a square and rigorously explores all the possibilities within these two shapes. I aim to extract beauty from familiar geometries, generating forms with no beginning, middle or end - and inviting people to see from all sides and distances, to sit and more deeply contemplate their own pathways to visual awareness.”