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Poetter Hall was purchased by the SCAD founders in March 1979. Classes began in September of that year.  
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The Arts

Alumnus asks audience to ‘Remember’

“I just take medicines and try and keep it manageable” by Chris Scarborough

“I just take medicines and try and keep it manageable” by Chris Scarborough is on display at Atwell’s Art and Frame through Nov. 3.

By Hannah Pittard
Published: Friday, October 24, 2003

It has been just three years since alumnus Chris Scarborough (B.F.A. illustration, 2000) graduated from SCAD, but in that time he has twice been featured in “New American Paintings,” hosted solo shows in Nashville, Atlanta, New Orleans and Savannah, participated in a plethora of group shows and placed second at the Kentucky National Juried Exhibition. “I think of myself as very fortunate to be doing what I’m doing,” he said. “I am always setting new and higher goals for myself as an artist, and I’d like to think I’m meeting them.”

“New American Paintings,” essentially a juried exhibition in print, is edited by a different curator each edition. After being published in the magazine, an artist is required to wait a minimum of two years before submitting new work. Scarborough was accepted a second time on his first try after waiting the allotted time. “It’s great,” he said. “I’m greatly appreciative of having made it twice in such a relatively short amount of time. I count myself very lucky.”

In the wake of such success and in the midst of a seemingly hectic schedule, the work of the Alabama-native returns to Savannah in “See Me. Remember Me.” — a solo exhibition presenting a manufactured reality.

“The phrase itself I would describe as trying to give a voice to those who have none,” said Scarborough of the exhibition’s title. “It asks that you remember what you have seen in the world around you.”

According to Scarborough, his work, at first glance, resembles real people and real events. “But in the end [it] actually turns out to be a composite of several persons created on a computer and the real events are actually recreations that are staged, as if you were going to see a movie based on real events,” he said. “The work is meant to play with a viewer’s suspension of disbelief. Most television in general presents a cleaned-up version of reality where you never see an eyelash out of place … Most mainstream media shows only a very skewed version of reality at best. This affects you as a person, it biases your view of reality so that when you are presented with real imagery you often find yourself disappointed or horrified.”

Scarborough’s Web site, www.scarboy.net, offers insights into his attitude and opinions about everything from technology to paranoia, while also offering a look at his various collections of work. “Technology is a funny thing,” said Scarborough. “It is amazing how we can sit utterly captivated, mouths agape, in front of a TV or computer screen for hours on end. It has amazing potential and can also raise many concerning questions.”

Asking questions about our direction as a species, our abilities to tinker with genetics and our destiny as humans, Scar-borough, not surprisingly, admitted to a theme of perverting nature in his work, “creating something like human relief maps or genetic experiments gone awry.” In many ways, “See Me. Remember Me.” is, unavoidably, a response to pop culture — something the artist insists is a driving force in our society. “It tells us what we need and what we should aspire to; it is our other mother,” Scarborough said. “I look at the world around me and if I see something that moves me to comment on then I try to do so … [My] work begs that question of what do we consider real as we attempt to find our way in a world saturated by pop culture and violence.”

Ultimately, Scar-borough’s hope is that the audience will respond to his work. “My hope is only that it provokes a reaction in the viewer. Whether it is positive or negative doesn’t matter, but that they react to it.”

“See Me. Remember Me.” is on display at Atwell’s Art and Frame, 228 W. Broughton St., through Nov. 15. Scarborough also has work on display in “Wondrous Reality,” an exhibition at Pinnacle Gallery, 320 E. Liberty St., through Nov. 3.