The feel of nature
When Lindsay Scott is out in nature, she isn’t necessarily thinking about the next artwork that will be on her easel. She could obsess over all of it with color studies, quick sketches and photographs, but those capture a scene, not the feeling she had when she was in nature. “I rarely paint things I’ve seen exactly. I’m not trying to capture what I’m seeing,” she says. “I’m trying to capture a feeling—the essence of being there and feeling the world all around me.”
The New Zealand-based artist, who frequently paints both African and North American subject matter, will be showing her newest paintings at a solo show opening October 1 at Insight Gallery in Fredericksburg, Texas. “I certainly love the African wildlife that I paint, but I also paint a lot of North American animals because I did live there, including in Arizona, for more than
27 years. I love the big bison—they’re huge and so powerful,” she says, adding that she frequently visits the Jackson Hole area, where she encounters some of America’s most iconic wildlife. “Jackson Hole is its own kind of safari that is a lot of fun.”
In addition to bison, the new show will have longhorn subjects. “The show is in Texas, so I really must have some longhorns there,” she says. “The horns really allow a lot of interesting compositions.”
The show will feature two bison paintings, Sageland Morning and Contenders, which shows two bison sparring in a cloud of dust that conveys movement, the frantic struggle for dominance and the bisons’ powerful shapes. Other pieces include lions, elephants and the magnificent cheetah scene Gathering Storm, which shows three subjects sitting on a termite mound.
“It’s hard to capture the vastness of a place, and that’s what I want to do. Some of my works are really big, 50 inches across, but even that is nothing compared to the vastness of nature,” she says. “It’s a constant challenge to bring the vastness into a painting, but it’s something I’ve enjoyed for more than 30 years.”
The Gallery Says… “[Lindsay Scott’s] ability to capture the raw beauty of African wildlife in a variety of mediums is enviable. Whether oil, charcoal or colored pencil, we find collectors standing in their presence transfixed by her ability to communicate so vividly in each medium.” — Elizabeth Harris, owner, Insight Gallery