Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs, Scott Kahn (born in 1946) is the perfect embodiment of that strange alchemy where talent, long hidden in the shadows, finally explodes into the light like a late-blooming supernova. Just imagine: for decades, this American artist painted in relative obscurity, living in his cousin’s attic, unable to sell a canvas for more than 5,000 euros. And then, like in a modern fairy tale, Instagram became his magic wand, transforming this discreet septuagenarian into a sensation of the contemporary art market.
But make no mistake, this is not just a social media story. Kahn’s works are imbued with a telluric force that transcends trends and eras, strangely echoing Nietzsche’s theory of the eternal return. Just as the German philosopher spoke of a cyclical universe where every moment is destined to repeat itself infinitely, Kahn’s landscapes seem to exist in a dimension where time itself is suspended, where each tree, each cloud, each moonbeam is both unique and eternal.
Look at The Gate (2021–2022), a work that perfectly captures this peculiar temporality. A pathway lined with trees in unreal hues—teal trunks on one side, magenta pink on the other—leads to an absurd gate that protects nothing. It’s as if Kahn is inviting us to meditate on Kant’s concept of the antinomies of pure reason, where objective reality collides with the limits of our perception. The gate, symbolically useless, becomes a metaphor for the artificial barriers we erect between the world as it is and as we perceive it.
This first part of his work plunges us into a universe where nature is not merely represented but transfigured through a quasi-mystical vision. Kahn paints each leaf, each blade of grass with a manic precision reminiscent of medieval illuminations. But unlike the copyist monks who sought to glorify divine creation, Kahn seems rather to explore what Merleau-Ponty called the “flesh of the world”—that sensitive interface where the visible and the invisible meet and merge.
Take Big House: Homage to America (2012), auctioned for 1.4 million euros. This work is not just a depiction of an American home; it is a profound meditation on Heidegger’s concept of “dwelling”. The house, bathed in a supernatural light, is not so much a building as a place where sky and earth, the divine and the mortal, converge. The clouds looming over the scene are not mere atmospheric formations but quasi-mythological presences, dancing above the landscape like Greek gods over Olympus.
The second theme running through Kahn’s work is his relationship with time and memory. His nocturnal landscapes, in particular, seem to be portals to what Bergson called “pure duration”—that subjective time that eludes the mechanical measurement of clocks. In The Walled City (1988), Kahn offers us a view of Manhattan from across the Hudson, but it is not so much the city that strikes us as the strange theatricality of the scene. An empty armchair on a lit stage, framed by curtains of fire, transforms the skyline into a set for a metaphysical play.
What is remarkable about Kahn is that he creates works that are both deeply personal and universally accessible. His “visual journal”, as he likes to call his work, is not a mere autobiographical chronicle but an exploration of what Jung called the collective unconscious. Each painting thus becomes a meeting point between individual experience and universal archetypes.
Kahn’s technique is just as interesting as his themes. His handling of light, especially in his nocturnal scenes, creates an atmosphere reminiscent of Georges de La Tour’s paintings but with a decidedly contemporary chromatic palette. The colors vibrate with an almost hallucinatory intensity, as if lit from within. This particular luminosity is reminiscent of Goethe’s color theory, which saw in each hue not merely an optical phenomenon but a manifestation of primordial forces.
The artist works with monastic patience, sometimes spending months on a single canvas. This deliberate slowness is not merely a technical choice but a philosophical stance echoing Husserl’s phenomenology. Each brushstroke is an epoché, a suspension of the ordinary world to reveal the essence of things. The trees, houses, and clouds in his paintings are not merely represented; they are revealed in their deepest being.
It is fascinating to see how Kahn, through his singular trajectory, perfectly embodies what the philosopher Walter Benjamin called the “aura” of the work of art. In a contemporary art world obsessed with novelty and speed, his paintings radiate a presence that defies mechanical reproduction. Each work is the result of prolonged contemplation, an intimate conversation with the visible and the invisible.
Kahn’s late recognition reminds us that true art is not a matter of age or fashion but of inner necessity. As he himself says: “If I don’t feel compelled to paint, how can I expect the viewer to be moved by what I bring forth?” This profound authenticity resonates with Heidegger’s notion of authenticity, where human beings find their truth not in conforming to social expectations but in remaining faithful to their deepest vocation.
Kahn’s portraits, though fewer than his landscapes, reveal a profound understanding of what Levinas called “the face of the other”. In his 1982 self-portrait, for example, we do not simply see a physical representation but a confrontation with the fundamental alterity that lies at the heart of identity itself.
The influence of Matthew Wong on Kahn’s late career adds a particularly poignant dimension to his story. This intergenerational friendship, born on social media and tragically interrupted by Wong’s suicide in 2019, perfectly illustrates what the philosopher Maurice Blanchot called “the unavowable community”—that mysterious connection that binds beings beyond temporal and spatial contingencies.
Scott Kahn’s work reminds us that true art is not a matter of timing or marketing but of inner truth. His dreamlike landscapes, meditative portraits, and metaphysical compositions form a body of work that transcends easy categories and commercial labels. In an art world often dominated by spectacle and ephemerality, Kahn offers us work that invites contemplation and deep reflection, reminding us that true beauty, like truth, sometimes takes time to reveal itself.
His late success is not so much a revenge on time as a validation of patience and artistic authenticity. Like the finest wines, some artists need decades to reach full maturity. Scott Kahn is one of them, and his work continues to remind us that art, like philosophy, is a quest for truth that knows no age limit.