Biography

Cory grew up in a working-class neighbourhood of Brandon, Manitoba, nestled on the edge of downtown between the CPR railway tracks and the Assiniboine River. His urban upbringing and passion for exploring quickly inspired a love for the modest, timeworn houses and light industrial warehouses around his home. His childhood was best characterized by unsupervised adventures and the freedom of a ‘be home by supper’ mentality that was the 1980s. When he was stuck inside, Cory’s favourite memory always draws back to sketching in his dining room, sunbeams pouring in through the window, lost in his world of art.

As a teenager Cory moved to Victoria BC, really igniting his love for exploring unknown places. Although his sketching ceased, Cory embarked on a series of backpacking adventures that would take him around the world several times over, resulting in a newfound love for photography and a chance to visit many of the finest art galleries in the world. When not travelling Cory pursued degrees in History from both the University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

By the 2010s, Cory had moved to Perth, then Sydney, Australia, exploring and photographing their sun-soaked beauty at every opportunity. But when his partner offered him a starter set of acrylics as a hobby to help decompress from his high-stress job, his life immediately changed. Cory and painting went together like peas and carrots, and he hasn’t stopped painting since.

In 2017, Cory returned to Victoria and set up his studio in North Jubilee. Today, his art continues to be inspired by urban exploration and quaint scenes of neglected spaces and timeworn objects. When he’s not planning his next world adventure, you can find Cory cycling in Oak Bay, reading history on his couch, or taking reference photos of drab urban spaces to the perplexity of those around him.

Artist Statement

Cory Scott is a contemporary painter born in 1978 in Brandon, Manitoba, now residing and working in Victoria, Canada. His work is inspired by his formative years growing up in a historic working-class neighbourhood, where he gleefully explored and dreamed up fanciful stories of the decaying and abandoned structures around him.

Today, Cory’s urban-obsessed paintings seek to convey that same childhood sense of wonder to his viewers by examining how people witness and value the built environment surrounding them. Starting with photos of forgotten corners of city life, Cory uses colourful acrylics, zoomed-in perspectives, and excruciating detail to produce stylized, dream-like images that elevate common city scenery into true works of art. His paintings showcase the hopes, struggles, and stories behind neglected urban scenery and weathered objects. Ultimately, Cory artwork encourages the viewer to see something magical in the mundane, and to reflect back to the viewer the subjective manner in which we perceive and assign beauty in our cities’ most forgotten corners.