Art, Uncontained
Andrew Scott’s frame experiments are not only the product of ingenious innovation but also a bold artistic attempt to redraw the boundaries of art.
Words Donavil Angeles
Photos courtesy of Andrew Scott
September 27, 2025
Unveil
A portrait speaks through its subjects and construction. Technique, style, and medium are all pivotal to the successful expression of an artist’s intent. But for some, their artworks can reach out to viewers in unexpected ways, extending past frames.
In 2023, Andrew Scott, an interdisciplinary artist based in Rochester, shared a video on TikTok showing himself puncturing the glass of a frame that held his drawing of a man swinging a baseball bat, simulating the man breaking through from the inside.
That moment marked the beginning of a series of videos in which Scott revealed the creative processes behind what he dubbed his “frame experiments.”
Without distance
From a boy using his slingshot to strike the glass, to a man chipping away at his borders with a pickaxe, Andrew Scott’s subjects simply refuse to stay put. Infused with the illusion of life, his sketched portraits do more than throw Molotov cocktails or leap into the air—they torch, burn, and crease the very space they inhabit.
It is a bold resistance of the traditional boundaries of art, with Scott’s works actively seeking to alter their surroundings. Tapping into the inevitable human desire to be free, he deliberately lets his works escape from the frames in order to exude the feeling of hope, walking or leaping into a more liberated environment.
Performative by nature, Scott’s art unfolds following his very alteration of the piece itself. On its own, his work is raw and human, yet under an artist’s touch do they truly come alive.
Snapping one end of a cord where a frame hangs shows that a boy, initially drawn sitting vertically against the left side of the frame with his arms fanned out, is actually sliding down after the fall. But the fall does not happen until after the artist performs.
Intrigued by children’s whimsical and curious nature, they became Scott’s inspiration for most of his subjects in his pieces, which he relayed in a Good Morning America segment: “There’s just something about children and not knowing what their limits are and sort of finding it out and exploring the world around them.”
Meanwhile, one recurring element in Scott’s works is the visceral red, transforming the monotonous backdrop into a scenery for something human. This burst of color serves as the art’s core: revealing the underlying passion, power, and the color of rebellion, to the observers beyond, and to the conventions of art.
The interaction
Beginning with the desire to create art that he defined as a ‘visual plot twist,’ where two subjects across frames react to each other, Scott slowly transformed this concept into his current form of technique: the subject interacting with the frame itself instead.
Aspiring to hone these ‘visual plot twists’ into techniques that convey what he describes as ‘a clever, visual communication,’ he touches on the idea of challenging the customs, inviting the viewers to witness how the narrative unfolds through his performance.
Currently, Scott has managed to amass countless viewers and avid supporters, with his works from various collections consistently selling out. Even with his success, Scott continues to evolve as an artist, expanding how he can experiment with frames.
Through his artworks, viewers are taken into an exploration of the evolution of art and its dynamic quality. His artwork simply beckons for a rebuilding of the traditional into new experiments, altering them into his subjects’ playground.
In his words: Shattering artistic convention. From the glass to the frame.
