By-Chance: Works by Scott Kirschner

• Friday, September 26 through Sunday, October 12
• Rehoboth Art League, Rehoboth Beach, DE
• 302-227-8408

September 26 through October 26, 2025

Opening Reception: Friday, September 26, 2025 (5pm-7pm)

Ventures Gallery





My artwork comes from a place inside me that I have named ……. MY INNER WASTELAND. I first made this realization when I was walking through the woods sketching and gathering inspiration from the trees that surrounded me. At one point during my walk, I came across an old rusty car being swallowed by the vines and foliage. It gave me pause, contemplating how this car came to its final resting place and how the forest was quickly consuming this intrusion into its natural habitat. As I moved on down the path maybe due to the discovery of the car, I became increasingly aware of the various debris that littered the terrain around me. Papers of all sorts caught up in the gnarled fingers of the trees that were delivered over time by strong winds and Humans (Litter Bugs). I sat down on a tree stump, saddened by the amount of trash strewn about, trying to understand human ignorance. It was alien and had no place amongst all the natural

beauty. I had a moment of clarity then. I realized the intruding debris was being absorbed into the landscape, that the forest was healing itself by overgrowing and pulling down the foreign matter into its darkest shadows. A new life was thriving and expanding above it. New shapes and forms over time were being created. Places where the squirrels can escape the hawk, where deer can take refuge from harsh weather.





Then it occurred to me that this forest is much like our psyche. The debris that intruded into the forest is very much like a bad day at work, a broken heart, or something much worse, like sudden death in the family. These things that life blows our way don’t always get cleared out. The branches and brambles cause some to get hung up and entangled causing discomfort deep within us.

Inside we are like the forest, we have the ability to heal ourselves from these obstructions and foreign matter, to push, pull and overgrow that which pollutes our psyche. To let the good things that happen to us in life… a first kiss, a mothers hug, our son or daughter being born, we allow that to be the fresh rain, that quenches the thirst of new growth. To bring sunlight into the dark corners, flowers can bring the freshness and beauty onto that new landscape being created. This is where I come to find inspiration. I visit my stories that both bathe in the light and those that hide in those dark. Cold pockets under layers of vines and even much deeper buried beneath the earth’s surface. As I walk through and look for those stories I cultivate MY INNER WASTELAND and

personal connection to my subject matter. In return, comes the best opportunity to create work that is genuine.





My show “By Chance” is just that. Stemming from my walks through my Inner wasteland. Plucking and gathering words out of the terrain. These words I then placed into a bag and were blindly drawn in groupings of 3. Each trio of words will be turned into a finished images. This exercise is intended for me to randomly place words together to create a story I may have never told otherwise. Interesting how some of the word grouping have some common ground where other word groupings are very foreign from one another. Invoking thought that is intriguing to me as an artist and will be equally intriguing for the viewer because the three words will accompany each image just below the title.

Exhibitions Museums Free Visual Arts Southern Delaware

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