Ian Scott’s exhibition provokes interest

Media Release – November 3, 2004

Ian Scott’s Suburban Models paintings exhibition provokes interest

Ian Scott’s Suburban Models exhibition at the Ferner Galleries in Auckland City this month has again provoked interest, partly because of his depiction of scantily-clad women.

Scott has employed a range of 'models' throughout his career to examine issues of morality and the overlapping boundaries of 'high' and commercial art.

The fabric of suburbia - brick walls, weatherboard, ventilation grates and home decorating – is prominent in Scott's works. These motifs may be interpreted as wry comment on the realities and constraints of suburban living or equally as a homage to the beauty of ordinary New Zealand life. Scott is a major New Zealand artist of the post-McCahon generation who has remained innovative and relentlessly experimental throughout his prodigious career.

Colin McCahon was his painting tutor at Elam art school. Scott consciously worked to distance himself from the older painter and develop his own contemporary approach to the landscape.

His mini-skirted bikini clad girls of 1968-70 captured the local flavour of the era as effectively as his pop art contemporaries in USA and Britain.

Scott’s exhibition history is extensive; he has numerous works in public galleries and private collections throughout New Zealand.

Scott says public attitudes to nude paintings have changed significantly in the last 30 years. ``I got into trouble with one of my 1968-70 nude series. Some of them were banned from exhibition,’’ Scott said today.

``One series, called Lawnlovers (1969) was taken down and banned. There was a fuss in the media at the time. Times have changed and nude paintings or artwork are readily accepted in New Zealand these days.’’

Ferner Galleries’ managing director Helene Phillips said the art world had changed since the prudish days of the 1960s.

The exhibition ends at the Lorne Street gallery on Saturday.

ENDS

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