Jason Scuilla
Professor & Area Coordinator, Printmaking
Email: jscuilla@ksu.edu
Website: http://www.jasonscuilla.com/
Office: Willard 321
M.F.A. in Printmaking, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 2004-2005
M.F.A. in Printmaking, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Rome, Italy, 2003-2004
B.F.A. in Drawing, University of Central Florida, 2003
Bio
Jason Scuilla is an artist and printmaker raised in Sarasota, FL. His drawings and prints have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the US and Europe.
An American artist of Italian descent, Scuilla has spent considerable time in Italy studying and creating artwork. This experience continues to have a profound impact on his creative process. In his prints dramatic composition, intellectual subtlety, pictorial economy, and a deadpan humor are combined to question mankind's complex relationship with mortality and the ancient past.
"Though much of my work tends to be black and white in medium, the content sits in that mysterious gray area that makes life and humanity so complex, magical, and interesting. In my life and in my prints, I try to find that delicate balance between disciplined intensity, seriousness, absurdity, and humor. If I find myself laughing while I'm working that usually means the print is on its way."
Scuilla’s detailed prints are hand drawn and etched with an innovative electrochemical etching process. His mastery of this process has been recognized nationally and internationally in the scientific and print communities. He has lectured and demonstrated at Universities, Conferences, Art Centers, and Print shops throughout the world.
Scuilla serves as Professor of Art and Head of the Printmaking at Kansas State University. He also serves as technical director of the NEA Current Prints Arts & Sciences Research Lab and faculty advisor to the Kansas State University Prairie Fire Printmakers.
Statement
“Scuilla’s imagery is indeed like a door into a magic world – inhabited by fragments from the feet of Ancient Emporer Nero’s colossal statue, bones of a bird, twirling monks, and phantom saints and martyrs.” “Through a surrealistic visualizing of ancient and Renaissance culture, Scuilla explores human behavior – the good and the foolish – and reminds us of our mortality.”
-Elizabeth Seaton, Curator
Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art
Porta Magica, Exhibition Catalogue.
“These Feet, these colossal, massive feet, which look like chiseled, craggy and crumbling marble, are tip-toeing through the Italian landscape light as a feather. The absurdity of it makes me laugh. The rest of Scuilla's spare compositions lays bare witness that such a humorous thing is actually happening, and here they are, feet effortlessly crossing the terrain, toes barely tickling the ground. Surely a colossal statue, which should be attached to such manner of said feet, would be crushing the ground and anything else beneath them, but then we break from Scuilla's vision.
Scuilla's prints resemble old book plates torn from an ancient text… His playful imaginings of these metatarsals amuses us and makes us question what is real. With just these two feet, he also shows Nero to be the mad emperor we always have envisioned; he romps through the city of Rome on his self-indulgent quests… We know this was a painful era in ancient Rome's past, but Scuilla lets us be as one with the emperor and gleefully survey the Tuscan land. If the 'shoe' fits….”
-Theresa Parker, That’s Inked Up,
“The effects of cross-cultural discourse also surface in Jason Scuilla’s detailed prints. His work owes much to art history’s traditional embrace of the Renaissance era, as his prints showcase the sculpted body – its textures, its physiology, and its imperfections – and its impacts upon an artist recalling his visitations to historical sites throughout Italy. His practice illustrates a powerful merging of memory, structure, and sensuality that issues from both deconstructions and re-contextualization of the body. Scuilla’s painstaking attention to elaborate, almost imperceptible networks of detail certainly highlight his status as a masterful printmaker.”
-Dr. Royce W. Smith, Dean
Montana State University.
Ad Astra Per Aspera Exhibition Catalogue.
Floating Toe, 10.5x12" Electrolytic Etching.