Earlier this year, Andrew Scott went viral. But not the actor who played “Sherlock” arch nemesis Moriarty and the “Fleabag” character that everyone just refers to as ‘Hot Priest.’ This is the Rochester-based artist whose clever digital illustrations started getting real attention when he began posting Instagram reels and TikToks of him busting the frames, breaking the glass that protects the prints, and otherwise altering the things that encase the artwork.
These aren’t random acts of chaos, but activations. They’re precise alterations meant to create an interaction between the artworks’ subjects and the frames. One illustration features a young kid in a black beanie who has just let a projectile fly from the slingshot he’s holding. In Scott’s Instagram reel he takes a hammer to the glass, smashing it just-so, making it look like the kid caused the damage. In others, the slingshot kid has turned toward the frame, which dents outward as though struck. A boxer seems to have smashed the glass with his left hook, a man with a pickax seems to have broken the frame, and a kid “holds” a real string that loops around the top of the frame and attaches to an illustrated kite, as though tangled and stuck.
The insta-fame is the last thing Scott, a 32-year-old self-dubbed introvert and city resident, expected, and he’s still cautiously adjusting to what it means.
“There’s like a performance art aspect to it,” Scott said, “because I’m not showing the drawing process, I’m showing a few alterations that just bring the piece to life.”
The Fairport native has loved drawing since childhood, but only got back into making art a couple of years ago, partially as a means of responding to political upheaval. But it was crickets until he posted videos of him “activating” the art through destruction in January of this year.
Something resonated. Viewers love a process-reveal video — and it earned more than 1 million views within a week. His 600 followers soon grew to the almost 200,000 he currently has. In June he had an online, sold-out solo show hosted by London-based Stowe Gallery.
But for now, he’s keeping his day job and proceeding with caution.
“If I had a couple more shows that were as successful as this first one, I would feel I had proof it’s something sustainable, that it wasn’t just that I went viral for a few months,” Scott says. “I need to know that I have staying power.”
His work keeps playfully evolving. That kid with the slingshot? Scott brought him out of his frame and into the world — he’s now available in sticker form. Follow along at instagram.com/andrewscott_art.
Rebecca Rafferty is an arts writer for CITY. She can be reached at becca@rochester-citynews.com.
This article appears in Aug 1-31, 2023.
