Musician/artist Scott Elliot’s solo show at the Opera House Gallery is colorful, provocative and engaging. Fans – old and new – family, and longtime friends attending the Jan. 8 opening reception were blown away by the work. Many had no idea Scott, best known as the Boneheads’ bassist the past 33 years, was also an artist with a paintbrush and, occasionally, a blowtorch.

His journey to the easel began during COVID. Right. Just five years ago. And when you see his work, it’s so hard to believe. Experiencing Scott's work, you realize: This guy's a natural. But back to that beginning. Thanks to COVID, obviously the gigs were canceled and the band wasn’t getting together. One fine, 5F day, Scott and his wife, Josie (also an artist), came to Boothbay Harbor to visit with his longtime friend, artist/musician Doug Gimbel.

“Doug had this whole (studio) set up inside. I told him I’d like to try it someday and he invited me to come over the next morning,” Scott recalled. “He had a pile of paint and two easels set up. He opened the windows and we put on the masks ... We've been friends for a long time, played music together, right? He's a fabulous singer, and one of the most creative guys I know. Sometimes we’d be painting and I'd say ‘let’s swap.’ So we traded and painted about 20 minutes and then swapped back. We made a couple of paintings that way. It was fun, and I think they turned out good."

When Scott paints, it’s mostly with acrylics, sometimes adding a bit of oil stick or wood stain and, yes, a blowtorch. He paints in a relatively small studio space in his home. Seeing my eyes widen, Scott said, “I just try stuff. I love it ... and, yeah, sometimes I think ‘this needs a little blow torch.’ I just try it and see what happens.”

We walked around the gallery for a little bit talking about some of the paintings, several of which are of friends. The piece used in the press release, “The Flying Farmer,” on a 4’x 5’ canvas, is in acrylics and oil stick. Scott painted this one a few days after a close friend, who was a farmer, had died. Then there’s “Frank,” who played the blues on accordion at Morganfields in Portland back in the 90s when Scott was a member of the house band. “Frank Martin was world class accordion blues,” recalled Scott. “He plugged himself into the wall, played all night, so that's the memory I have. But then I had a dream after I painted it about him going, like through a portal, like through the outlet, into the future.”

The full length painting depicts Frank in the forefront with a disquieting, dystopian-like background behind him. And his facial expression tells you whatever he experienced back there will haunt him forever. What a painting!

The following is my take on “Family Abundance,” the large painting above the piano. This was another one I returned to several times. I just got lost in the depth of emotional trauma. And yet, it is one of my favorite pieces in the show. I had to cut back on sharing what I experienced in this one. Not your traditional family portrait, but it’s one that will resonate with some.

A severely fractured family of four look out from the canvas. Their bleeding hearts clearly visible, but the red paint is slightly faded, which informed me this family had been through an emotional wringer for a considerable amount of time – and it ain’t over yet. Is it ever? Unlike the others, the mother’s heart is behind bars, closed off. This woman is emotionally spent. Numb. Her eyes, one far up on her forehead, are an extreme way to convey the emotional and physical rollercoaster she’s been riding for quite some time. The kids' eyes are weary-filled, sad numb. Their father's arm, closest to his wife, rests protectively around the children, a physical and symbolic barrier between them and her. The long-stemmed glass in his right hand holds all of the family’s wealth and possessions and it is as far removed from his wife as possible. And, don't get me started on the auras around them!

Since painting with Doug weekly, sometimes two or three times, for a month or two, Scott paints every day. Every, day. "I can't imagine not painting. I recommend it to everybody. Every human being should do this for a week and see what they feel like afterward.”

“Maintenance in Paradise.” A fun, colorful painting. A man rides a scooter through a floral garden with a bluebird perched on one of the handlebars. The flowers, in bright and muted colors, stand in front of a meadow under a blue sky. But the man is not so beautiful: His facial features and arms are distorted. This garden is his maintenance, as nature is to all of us. Nature fills us with wonder and awe, we feel peaceful and connected to something larger than ourselves. Humanity is flawed, nature is perfect. This painting reminds us, me, of blessings we may not always acknowledge.

The Opera House Gallery's large walls are perfect for exhibiting larger paintings. When selecting work for this show, Scott started with these. Previously, Scott has had two other solo shows, one in Hallowell at Slates and at The Maine House. His work has also been shown at Maine Art Gallery. Scott’s work has been selling since 2021-2022-ish, maybe earlier. In fact, three or four of the pieces in this show have been sold.

We can only imagine where Scott’s imagination will take him, and later, all of us, next. As Bob Dylan said, “An artist has to be in a constant state of becoming.”

Here’s the scoop on seeing The Scott Elliot Exhibition at the Opera House, at 86 Townsend Ave. in Boothbay Harbor: The show, running through May 31, can be viewed Tuesday – Friday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and during concerts and other events, like the Friday open mics and at the next Boneheads show there on April 18.