Scott Musgrove
Useless Animals

April 10th - May 2nd

We are thrilled to present an ambitious new solo show by NW-based artist Scott Musgrove, "Useless Animals"- featuring 11 new paintings, 9 drawings, and 9 sculptures. 
With a career spanning almost 3 decades, Musgrove is a surrealist/naturalist of the uncanny, the ridiculous, and the imaginary. His cartoonish creatures inspire delight but also reflection upon our own natural world. We've lost so many wonders on our earth that we don’t even know how many that number actually IS or some of what we have even lost. Musgrove's work looks at imaginary evolutions- lost to time and knowledge but breathed back to life in wild and humorous imagination. In this show- a new genre of animals is added to his roster of faux fauna. Roaming in pristine wilderness, but with giant roving spotlight heads, they act as beacons drawing attention to our planet, where our natural world is currently straddling the brink of multiple extinctions.

These new works play with light, both depicted and, in the case of the sculptures, many are actually illuminated. Exploration and discovery permeate Musgrove's images, but almost as importantly, they are also plain good fun.

In this series, many of these animals are reduced to simplified, almost anonymous geometric forms. They’re still recognizable as beings, but something has been intentionally altered. The shift reflects a familiar habit: living beings are often translated into categories, products, or units of usefulness rather than encountered as singular individuals. The “useless animal” is simply the one that falls outside that system; not valuable enough to exploit, and sometimes not valuable enough to protect.

After abstracting them, I return these animals to open landscapes; sky, field, weather, distance. The landscape operates outside human systems of value; It doesn’t sort life into productive and unproductive. Within these spaces, the animals are not performing a role or serving a purpose. They are just … there.


Many of these figures emit a steady internal glow. The light represents consciousness; a calm, continuous awareness that persists regardless of usefulness or recognition. While the body may be simplified and categorized, the interior cannot be flattened. The work holds this quiet contradiction: a being may be overlooked within systems of value, and still experience the world fully. Usefulness is imposed. Consciousness is inherent. - Scott Musgrove

Scott Musgrove
Early Warning System
Oil on Board
painting 12” x 18”/framed 19” x 25”
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
Arched Pink Mammal of Questionable Utility
Oil on Board
painting 9.5” x 16.5”/Framed 16.5” x 23.5”
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
A Picturesque Landscape Featuring a Functionally Ambiguous Mammal and Associated Juveniles
Oil on Board
painting 9” x 14”/framed 15.5” x 20.5”
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
Plate IV: On the Misplacement of a Cephalopod
Oil on Board
painting 11.5” x 17.5”/framed 18” x 24”
$4,000

Scott Musgrove
Romantic Landscape with Unnecessary
Octopus and Excessively Large Gold Frame
Oil on board in an antique frame
Painting 11”x 9”/ framed17" x 15"
$3,200

Scott Musgrove
Large Unprofitable Mammal with Offspring
Oil on Board
painting 12” x 18”/framed 19” x 25”
$4,000.

Scott Musgrove
Prairie Boxer
Oil on Board 
framed 21″ x 15″
$3,800

Scott Musgrove
A Medium-sized Luminous Animal, Formerly Thought to Serve Some Purpose
Oil on Board
painting 8” x 12”/framed 15” x 19”
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
A Self-Illuminating Animal of No Practical Use
Oil on Board
painting 6.5” x 8.5”/framed 13.5” x 15.5”
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
Revolutionary Performance, Same Trusted Name
Oil on board
painting 8”x10”/framed 11”x14”
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
It Keeps Coming Up
Oil on Board
Framed 11.5 x 13.5”
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
The Miraculous Ascendance of Jeronimus Jellatinous the Elder - Study
Oil on paper
Painting 6“ x 12“/Framed 13” x 19”
SOLD

Scott Musgove
Untitled Perambulatory Quadrupedal Continuously Toroidal and Axially Structured Hirsute Mammal
Bronze
60” x 52” x 21”
Edition 1/7
$35,000

Scott Musgrove
Feelings
Wood, gold and light
6’ tall
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
The Pilgrim
Bronze with wood base
17” x 18” x 23.5”
Edition 1/12
$9,000

Scott Musgrove
Toroidal Mammal of As Yet Undetermined Purpose
Faux Fur, wood, vintage mid-century legs, lighting elements
50” x 43” x 22”
$8,500

Scott Musgrove
Did You Think I Was Immortal?
Bronze
20” x 18” x 9”
$7,500

Scott Musgrove
Probably Nothing
Bronze with wood base
8” x 15” x 18”
Edition 1/16
$6,000

Scott Musgrove
Early Warning System
Wood and Glass
20” x 13” x 16”
$3,000

Scott Musgrove
Radially Symmetrical Luminous Trophy
Faux Fur, Wood, Light (Wall Mounted)
20” x 20” x 5”
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
Booted Glamour Cat
Ceramic with Gold Glaze
23” x  20” x  14”
$2,400

Scott Musgrove
Performance Beyond Expectations
graphite on paper
Drawing 5.5”x7”/framed 12.5” x 15.5”
$650

Scott Musgrove
Untitled Perambulatory Quadrupedal Continuously Toroidal and Axially Structured Hirsute Mammal
graphite on paper
drawing 6” x 6”/framed 12” x 12”
SOLD

Scott Musgrove
South
graphite on paper
drawing 4” x 6”
framed 11” x 14”
SOLD