Scott Listfield

Hey, thanks for the post on my new show!

Los Angeles based artist Scott Listfield returns to San Francisco this weekend for his brand new exhibition at Harman Projects! An advance collectors preview will be made available online before the show opens, send @harmanprojects.bsky.social a DM to learn more!

#beautifulbizarre #art

Somewhere in the desert, a phone rings.

There's a Cybertruck on fire. Los Angeles is on fire. Everything's on fire. But don't worry, I'm sure we'll be fine. It's 2025. Extinction Stories, my latest show, opens August 2nd from 5-7pm at Harman Projects in San Francisco

Somewhere another species goes extinct. Don't worry, it's DNA has been recorded on the blockchain. Someday we'll put statues of them in our museums so that we won't forget them, and then someday the museums are gone, too.

Somewhere technology billionaires are figuring out creative solutions to all of the problems caused by technology billionaires. It'll be ok. They're building an everything app.

Somewhere a classroom of students use AI to write their papers. The teacher, fired, has been replaced by AI, which grades their papers and advises them on gun safety principles. Just one robot in conversation with another, talking about human endeavors, long after humans have stopped endeavoring.

Somewhere a drone circles a cemetery, wondering if the guy buried there is still interested in those designer sneakers he looked at once online in 2017.

Somewhere coyotes have taken over cities. Coyotes have been known to share their food and resources. They'll do better with them than we did.

Somewhere there's a Cybertruck on fire.

Somewhere a food delivery robot cries out in the night. It has a Chipotle order it really wants to deliver and is unaware that it's contents have long ago become inedible. It drives a lonely road, searching for Randy who ordered a burrito bowl.
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We’re in the end game now. You’ve only got one more day to pre-order my new book ASTRONAUT II at www.kickstarter.com/projects/par...

Art by @scottlistfield.bsky.social

So, want a book? Want a print? Want world peace? I do too but I’ve only got some semblance of control over the first two, sadly.

Did you hear about my new book? You can pre-order Astronaut II: More Paintings by Scott Listfield now at www.kickstarter.com/projects/par...

Did you hear about the exclusive Kickstarter only mini prints? Like this one here? It’s the only time you’ll be able to get a print of this particular piece.

HUGE NEWS! My second book ASTRONAUT II launches tomorrow on Kickstarter.

Six years in the making. Over 300 paintings. Over 20 short essays. A table of contests. Other stuff. Published by the fine folks at Paragon Books.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/par...

Damn. Never thought I’d be the guy who ends up stuck in a random place when the world ends, talking to my only friend, a Walrus I’ve named Wilford Brimley, to whom I sing the songs of Carly Rae Jepsen, thus keeping human culture alive.

Hey, so randomly I’m on a boat somewhere southwest of Greenland, and World War 3 seems like it might be happening, and wait, isn’t this exactly how every post-apocalyptic book starts?

There’s a Cybertruck on fire. Everything’s on fire. “Extinction Stories,” my next show, opens August 2nd at Harman Projects in San Francisco. Surprises are in store.

Another day, more 1984.

From my 2018 show at @thinkspace-art.bsky.social where I painted a version of Los Angeles mixing the 80’s I watched on MTV with the 1984 from George Orwell.

Apropos of nothing at all, two paintings I made in 2017 and 2018.

So put on your Ray-Bans, hop in a Lamborghini, and let’s cruise up and down Hollywood Blvd. Cherry ice cream smile, I suppose it’s very nice.

1984 had recently returned to the top of The NY Times bestseller’s list. I can’t imagine why. It seems, sadly, just as relevant today, as we find ourselves yet again living through a hot Orwell summer.

In January 2018 I had my first solo show at Thinkspace Projects in LA. It was called 1984. In it, I visited a candy colored version of Los Angeles that blended the look of MTV and Trapper Keepers with the symbology of Orwell’s dystopian book.

A few months back I relived my Britpop years on here, posting a series of paintings from my first ever show in London, back in 2016, which featured guest turns from some of my favorite 90’s British bands. Now I think maybe it’s time to go to 1984.

At the end of one the most incredible episodes of television I’ve ever seen, the bellhop mentioned above says to Cassian Andor “rebellions are built on hope.”

A lot has changed since then. A lot not for the better. It’s hard not to feel sometimes like we’re on the wrong side of history. I hope that’s not the case.

I could go on, but I’ll rein it in a little. I made this painting almost 10 years ago, for the official Star Wars show Art Awakens at Gallery 1988. It was right before the recent trilogy came out. An entirely different era of Star Wars. An entirely different era for America and the world.

And in a Star Wars show! A STAR WARS SHOW. It’s top to bottom a miracle this happened. The writing, the acting, the set designs, the costuming, the music, all of it are astounding, down to the guy who plays the bellhop, who has like 5 lines, and they are all devastating.

I know this will sound like hyperbole, but this show is a gift. One of the truly great and surprising shows of my lifetime. I know that sounds like an exaggeration. And maybe I’m caught up in the moment. But I’ve rarely seen the real price of freedom, portrayed so brutally and raw on television.

It’s a profoundly surprising meditation on war, on rebellion, on fascism, on the nature of heroes and villains. Who in this show both often find themselves required to do their fair share of horrible things, some with regret, and others with none.

I’m not here to talk you into it. Watch it, or don’t. There’s been a parade of mediocre Star Wars content, for pretty much my whole adult life, and I’d largely given up on it. Maybe you have too. Andor is totally different. It feels almost nothing like Star Wars yet looks quintessentially Star Wars.