Laney Contemporary's newest exhibition, Michael Scoggins: Goose, packs an emotional punch

For those of us of a certain age, the doodles in our college-ruled notebooks from middle and high school [that we stashed inside Trapper Keepers] serve as a diary of our angstiest, most awkward and most tender years ― equal parts funny, cringey and poignant. That same mix of emotions pervades the viewer at Laney Contemporary's latest exhibition, Michael Scoggins: Goose, which opens Sept. 1, at the off-the-beaten-path gallery on Mills B. Lane Blvd.

Scoggins, a New York-based artist, has adopted a youthful persona ― Michael S. ― in his latest works of large-scale notebook pages scribbled with drawings and phrases that in "its disarming ephemerality packs an unexpected punch with shifts in scale that can transform the insignificant ― into the unforgettable," according to Laney Contemporary.

What appears common and functional ― a ripped piece of paper, a list ― results from a multilayered studio process, which Scoggins, a Savannah College of Art and Design alum, likens to drawings or painting transforming into sculptures. The intricate (and intimate) detail with which he creates massive, well-worn pages ripped from a life or folded into flying airplanes confronts the viewer with a deeply personal story.

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