Betazoid in a Fog

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Walter Scott, "Piranha Pants," 2018

fabric, wood, plaster and acrylic, 37” x 18” x 12” (courtesy of the artist; photo by Carey Shaw)

Betazoids, from the planet Betazed, are telepathic humanoids. Deanna Troi, from Star Trek: The Next Generation, was only half Betazoid, but she was the most famous of her kind. So Betazoid in a Fog, the title of Walter Scott’s exhibition at the Remai Modern, is tragic, suggesting the inability to do what should come naturally: reading thoughts.

The pop poetry of the title gives some insight into Scott’s sensibilities and the work, which is handsome, improvisational, soft, anthropomorphic, anti-monumental, cool and, at first glance, almost hipster Jimmie Durham (now a relic here in Saskatoon with a show that closed at the Remai just two days after Scott’s opened). As a whole, Scott’s exhibition, on view until Oct. 21, is tightly harmonious in its materiality, palette and form. But it’s so mute it holds back more than it divulges.

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"Walter Scott: Betazoid in a Fog," 2018, installation view at the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Carey Shaw)

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"Walter Scott: Betazoid in a Fog," 2018, installation view at the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Carey Shaw)

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The elephant in the room is Wendy, the comic strip Scott started in 2011 while at art school in Montreal. Wendy, the star, is a 20-something, trendy, intelligent white girl who dreams of becoming a super-famous artist, but drinks too much, does too many drugs, is plagued with insecurities, “makes out with dumb guys” and generally screws up. Winona, her Indigenous best friend and roommate, was introduced later as Scott’s “Trojan horse,” allowing him to slip in “thornier, more important, political, racial and identity-based narratives.”

Scott has published four books of Wendy comics and has a growing fan base around the world. He started drawing Wendy to take a break from art and found he “was able to speak again, suddenly.” When asked if he resents Wendy’s success or thinks it detracts from his ambitions as an artist, he quickly retorts: “Wendy is art!” But he goes on to mention that he identifies with Keanu Reeves’ frustrations as a musician.

Although Wendy has graced Scott’s previous exhibitions – Toronto’s Mercer Union even commissioned a giant public panel of the comic in 2015 – she only appears in Saskatoon for a one-night performance, a stand-alone slide-show reading on Sept. 7 in the Remai theatre.

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Walter Scott, "Narratives From Home," 2018

fabric, plaster, wood, wire, string, 35" x 30" x 7" (courtesy of the artist; photo by Carey Shaw)

The thing is, Wendy is the edge – the dialogic excess that gets away from the author and takes on a life of its own. Or, rather, lives, since Scott, as a queer Mohawk from Kahnawake on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, thinks of himself and his characters as shapeshifters.

It leaves me wondering if Wendy is the subliminal caption – the repressed content to Scott’s designerly and beautiful-dumb sculptures. Without her, this show is too polite – the work is handsome, but it sits there and doesn’t say much. ■

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Walter Scott, "Bus Hat," 2018

fabric, wood, human hair, hat, 36" x 25" x 7" (courtesy of the artist)

Walter Scott’s exhibition, Betazoid in a Fog, is on view at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon from Aug. 10 to Oct. 21, 2018.