Across John Scott’s career, he would frequently return to imagery that would emphasize a roughly finished vision of a world in turmoil, underpinned by raw ferocity and occasionally morbid humour: bunny-eared half-men become astronauts and business yuppies, fighter jets are held aloft by wry wordplay, piles of skulls animated by the frenzied engines of history. From a career spanning four decades, perhaps no more evocative image from Scott’s practice were the Trans Am Apocalypse sculptures: using the point of a nail, Scott hand scratched the entire text of the Book of Revelations into the black-painted bodywork of two vintage Pontiac Trans Ams. That text - a biblical vision from another prophetic John, St. John the Divine - became an act of transformation, elevating the muscle cars into burly apocalyptic horsemen. Scott returns to that subject here, rendered in a night-blackened sleekness that recalls the weight and speed of his vision of a machine future.

John Scott: Firestorm, a major retrospective of the artist's career, is showing at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection until May 11.