This May, Sunken Well Tavern welcomed back artist Scott DeHaven for “Nostalgia (nuh-stal-juh)”, his fourth exhibition at the restaurant. The show brought together figurative oil paintings drawn from good memories and moments where history and personal experience intersect — works DeHaven describes as “an eclectic mix that could be a reflection of a misspent youth.”
Vintage vehicles are among his favorite subjects, rooted in time spent with his father at car shows and in the garage. “My dad loved cars, especially old British, German, and Italian cars. He and I worked on them together and we went to many car shows. It was our way of bonding, and I think about him often when painting them.”
The paintings reach beyond the personal, though, tapping into the visual language of automotive illustration from before color photography took over. “Car companies used to rely upon illustrations to advertise new cars before color film took over. In my opinion, those illustrations were more captivating because of their texture and implied movement,”said DeHaven.
Icons of sports and film run through the exhibition as well. Works reference the movie “Bullitt” starring Steve McQueen and an iconic scene of the Blues Brothers against the Chicago skyline. DeHaven has long painted sports figures, and his admiration runs deep — at one point he gifted an adaptation of a vintage sports magazine cover of David “Skywalker” Thompson directly to the legend himself.
The beaches of the Outer Banks, a favorite destination for DeHaven and his wife Christy, also an artist, provide another vein of inspiration. “The Outer Banks is comprised of 100 miles of old school beaches. There are lots of older homes and yet it remains loaded with natural beauty, occasionally offset with a few quirky tourist sites. In the fall and winter when the crowds disappear, it is magical.”
That spirit of beauty and quirk shows up directly in the work — including a painting of the old spaceship house in Frisco, North Carolina, complete with aliens catching waves.
Running beneath all of it is DeHaven’s appreciation for painters who found meaning in the everyday.
The geometric compositions of Richard Diebenkorn inform his work, as does the tender attention to ordinary subjects that defines Wayne Thiebaud. DeHaven’s “Nostalgia” lands squarely in that tradition — personal, playful, and rooted in the American grain.
To see more of his work and upcoming shows, follow DeHaven at @scottsbrush on Instagram.
