Modern Masters of Watercolor: Stephen Scott Young and Scott Kelley at Surovek Gallery

Most formally trained artists have been introduced to the use of watercolors. Watercolor paints can be unforgiving and unpredictable and difficult to control,  so many artists turn to oils and acrylics. Oils and acrylics are more forgiving than watercolors.

Those artists that are appreciate the elegance of watercolors, and the rewarding results that can be achieved, work hard to master the medium.

Stephen Scott Young (b. 1957) is a master of the medium. He has been called the present day Winslow Homer. Young was greatly influenced by a book of paintings  his mother gave him when he was just nine years old. The works of Caravaggio led him, even at that young age, to become intrigued with the great artist’s use of darks and lights.

Young studied printmaking at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. In addition to his superb use watercolors, he also creates etchings.

Works like The Pantry and Abaco Window, available at Surovek Gallery, showcase Young’s ability to create a mood and feeling with his use of layered drypoint and subtle contrasts. Many of his works are done in the Bahamas, where his wife was born and raised, and where Young has depicted many gentle, every-day scenes of life on the islands, including Blue Umbrella, available at Surovek Gallery.

Young's work can be found in prominent collections and museums throughout the United States and internationally, including the Presidential collection, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Asian Museum of Watercolor Art, in Haikou, Hainan Province, China, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Brandywine River Museum.

In which I venture into the swamps of Florida and survive an army of fire ants, surprise an alligator in a ditch, battle mosquitos and angry herons, mistake a huge rattlesnake for a stick and fall out of a cypress tree. Yet somehow - I manage to escape and live to tell the tale.
- Scott Kelley, Swamp, page 18, 2019.

Another modern watercolor master is Scott Kelley (b. 1963). Kelley studied at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College in London, received his BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in New York and was given a Fellowship from the Glassel School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.

He lives and works in Maine, and travels to the Everglades to paint the flora and fauna he observes in the swamps. Kelley uses the luminosity of watercolors to capture the colors of the wildlife that he observes. 

In 2019, Kelley made a trip to the Everglades and kept a detailed account of his exploits in a sketchbook, available at Surovek Gallery. The pages include glimpses into the technique and colors that he used during his time in the Swamp and give some insight into the process that he uses to create his works.

Scott Kelley’s works are included in the collections of the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine, the LL Bean collection, The Blackstone Group, The Maslow Collection and the National Gallery of Wildlife Art in Jackson, Wyoming.