Scott Goss (1980-)
Building Up, 2018-2019
Commissioned by Summa Health
Materials: Silkscreened, sandblasted, engraved, drawn, and painted glass panels, fused; 108 x 30.”
Location at Summa Health: Dr. Gary B. and Pamela S. Williams Tower on the Akron Campus (141 N. Forge St.), blue neighborhood, fifth floor, central waiting room.
About the art and artist
This work, commissioned for the Summa Collection, explores large commercial or civic architectural forms in downtown Akron and the smaller domestic forms (houses) found in its various neighborhoods in an imaginary mash-up. On top of the profiles of buildings from each group, Scott Goss lays out textures, patterns, and designs — what we call details — taken from the facades of downtown Akron buildings. He enlarges these and moves them into prominence in the cityscape, inviting us to pay closer attention as they take on a life of their own.
The multiple techniques of digital rendering, hand painting and drawing, silk-screening, sandblasting, and engraving on the layers of glass were used to record and develop certain details, for which the artist chose bright primary and secondary colors. These become means by which to track certain patterns throughout the work. Then Goss fused these panels together in order to create layered form and texture that echo and riff on the complexity of our built environment. His intention is to evoke memories and celebrate urban architectural relationships in satisfying ways that are both intensely descriptive and abstracted.
The son of an architect, Goss has been working primarily in glass since his undergraduate days at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he earned the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. As a Master of Fine Arts candidate at Kent State University, his explorations in a range of glass techniques led him to incorporate additional, larger-scale materials to create room-sized, multi-media installations dealing with personal, aesthetic, and social subjects. These were precursors to the work you are viewing now, but Building Up was conceived and elaborated specifically for this location at Summa, where you now experience it (a “site-specific work”, of which there are several in the new Summa tower).
Where to see more of this artist’s work:
Goss is a member of the faculty at the Cleveland Institute of Art and has won a 2021 Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist award and a grant from the Harpo Foundation; most recently, his interactive illuminated neon-and-glass sculpture was added to the roof garden at Worthington Yards in Cleveland's warehouse district. He has exhibited widely in group and solo exhibitions and has work included in multiple Cleveland-area collections and in public locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and California. You can see more of his work on his website, including several videos from his larger-scale installations. He is represented by and exhibits his work in galleries in Akron, Cleveland, Columbus, and Pittsburgh.