Between 2016 and 2018, Scott developed Tragico Incontro, a body of work rooted in the visual language of popular culture and the dramatic tension of graphic narrative. The source material for the series was drawn from the iconic Italian comic Diabolik. Discovered one evening outside a small second-hand bookshop in Venice, the books were laid out in an honesty box on the street. Paying five euros per copy, Scott acquired a vast selection of the black-and-white editions, becoming increasingly absorbed by the dynamic energy of their stark illustration and cinematic framing.
The bold contrast, exaggerated gesture, and tightly cropped compositions presented fertile ground for experimentation. Scott was drawn not only to the aesthetic of the imagery, but to its narrative charge — each panel suspended between action and aftermath, intimacy and violence, tension and release.
Inspired in part by the work of Christian Marclay and his onomatopoeic collage works of the 2000s, Scott began constructing compositions that fused fragmented comic panels into unified visual fields. Rather than preserving linear storytelling, he disrupted and reassembled it. The result was a tapestry of images in which the cinematic collided with the banal, and drama unfolded through rhythm, repetition, and visual rhyme. In these works, narrative becomes collective rather than sequential. Individual frames lose their singular authorship and instead contribute to a broader poetic structure. Gesture echoes gesture. Eyes mirror eyes. Movement reverberates across the surface. The works carry the momentum of film stills, yet remain resolutely static — suspended in a state of perpetual anticipation.
For the first time in his practice, Scott later translated the collages into a series of screen prints. This decision was both conceptual and material. By returning the imagery to a printed format, he reconnected the work to its origins in mass-produced publications, while elevating it through careful composition and craftsmanship. The screen prints honour the graphic intensity of the original comics while asserting the collages as autonomous works in their own right.
Tragico Incontro reflects Scott’s ongoing interest in appropriation, narrative fragmentation, and the space between popular imagery and fine art practice. Through repetition and reconfiguration, the familiar becomes estranged — and the dramatic encounter suggested in the title unfolds not only within the imagery, but between source and surface, authorship and reinterpretation.
