Richard Scott - Naīve Meets Pop

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Charl Bezuidenhout

Simplicity

Richard Scott the artist, Richard Scott the marketer and Richard Scott the business man. Though Richard wears a number of caps, they always seem to point in one direction: simplicity.

His art is uncomplicated. He uses bold colours and simple lines to create striking and recognisable images.

When it comes to the marketing of his work, the premise is simple too. He takes it seriously and spends money on it. The basic marketing tools, like a good website that is constantly kept up to date, and advertising in well-positioned magazines and newspapers, are important. It also helps that his style is controversial, which ensures that people talk about his art. Some people absolutely love it and others don't, and that is healthy.

In the business aspect the simplicity factor looks like this: He launched his art at very affordable prices. In 2000 you could buy a 100 x 100cm painting for less than R1 000. As his work became better and the demand increased, he steadily increased the price of his work. But instead of increasing it to suit the supply and demand dictum, he kept the increases low and employed people to help him and so managed to produce enough work to supply the demand still at very affordable prices. In the process he created full time jobs for two assistants and so managed to keep the price of his paintings low enough to keep it in reach of most young SA art collectors - a segment in the market that has proved to be particularly fascinated by his art. This of course meant foreign buyers realised that they are getting particularly good value for money, which led to more sales. Again, the marketing aspect reaping reawards. And so the circle is completed.

With the Beauty and the Beast series, Richard has decided to introduce new characters as part of his visual language. The familiar icons are still there, but given new meaning and more depth. He has based aspects of this body of work on an ancient fairy tale, but also used the new characters to help explain elements of his earlier work that people are not always aware of.

As before, all the elements of simplicity are present. His style is distinctively recogniseable as that of Richard Scott's. The new characters have identities and will find their place in his iconography. The marketing is taken seriously, as testified by the fact that you are holding this book in your hands. On the business level, the introduction of this body of work offers the lover of his art something new yet distinctively familiar and yet also ventures into new territory that will appeal to a different market. Once again, a completed circle.

Charl Bezuidenhout
After studying Law at the University of Stellenbosch, he spent five years travelling and working in Europe and the USA. Back in South Africa he became active in the music industry and the visual arts, where he pursued his passion for the arts and marketing. In 2004 he started Worldart, a company that provides marketing and management services to artists. Worldart has since opened two art galleries, one in Cape Town and one in Johannesburg.

Taken from Richards Book 2005

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