Scott Ligon is a digital artist and filmmaker. His work is frequently exhibited and has won several awards.

 

He received his MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art where he studied under renowned original abstract expressionist Grace Hartigan and attended “Perspectives on Criticism” classes taught by Robert Storr, formerly senior curator of painting and sculpture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

 

Early in his career, Scott made a living as a graphic designer and illustrator for ad agencies around the Washington DC area. This enabled Scott to learn digital art software. Scott utilized his perspective as a painter to explore the expansive possibilities of digital technology as an art-making tool. 

 

Scott is the author of Digital Art Revolution, Creating Fine Art with Photoshop. The book was published by Watson-Guptill, a division of Random House, the premiere publisher in books. 

 

His animated short film, Escape Velocity, about the connection between ADHD and creativity, has played in festivals and theaters all over the world, including screenings in Moscow, London, Toronto and San Francisco. Among other awards, Escape Velocity won “Best Experimental Film” at the USA Film Festival, Dallas, Texas. The film is distributed by Shorts International, the world’s leading short film brand. 

 

Escape Velocity played regularly on the Documentary Channel in the USA, Shorts TV in Europe and LAPTV, a partnership of four major entertainment giants, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount, and Fox TV in Latin America. 

 

His second short film, Figure/Ground is a hybrid of live action and animation. It features veteran actor Allan Kulakow who has been in several movies, including Death by Dawn, Syriana, The Good Shepherd, and HBO’s Something the Lord Made. He appeared as the Joint Chief of Staff on NBC’s West Wing. 

 

Figure/Ground is signed to an exclusive distribution agreement with Future Shorts in London. Future Shorts is a short film distributor whose partners include broadcasters (Arte/ZDF, Canal+, HBO, SBS Australia and SVT), online channels (YouTube, Babelgum), advertisers (Sony Computer Entertainment, Samsung), airlines (KLM, Qatar) and mobile content aggregators (PlayerX).

 

He has just completed his first feature film about his beloved son Max Ligon, who was killed by a drunk driver at age 19.

 

Scott lives outside of Cleveland with his wife Laura and son Sam.

 

Scott Ligon is an Associate Professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art. For the past 17 years he has taught Foundation/First year digital classes.

 

At CIA, Scott spearheaded the Digital Canvas Initiative integrating mobile technology into the first year curriculum.

 

He created CIA’s first online classes which included teaching a CIA online Digital Color class for Xi’an Eurasia University in China.