DIANE SCOTT
“I seek to make work that explores the perception and experience of form and space, particularly through strength in beauty and beauty in strength. Using the spatial qualities of composition, orientation and materiality to simultaneously make space visible and to bend it. I’m interested how an image can simultaneously question and withhold, and how that resistance to translation can be a vital part of an artwork’s enigma. I want the work to be atmospheric, visceral, and alive. To locate those spaces that oscillate from one state to another and resist a singular reading. The search for this atmospheric vibration drives the work.” - Diane Scott
Diane Scott is a highly regarded painter based in the Waikato who holds a master’s degree from Elam School of Fine Art with first-class honors. Her carefully considered work is informed by the history and innovations of abstract painting and is immediately eye-catching and absorbing in the ingenious way it plays with our perceptions of what a painting can be.
Her playful and dynamic images effectively balance a whole range of seeming-opposites: structure and fluidity, gesture and stillness, depth and illusion. While they are most certainly paintings with an almost physical insistence on the power of a confident brushstroke, there is something almost uncannily photographic about them, something hyperreal. The sculptural impact of these often quite large works on the wall is undeniable, emphasized by their bold use of fluid contours and negative space.