Diane Scott is a Waikato-based contemporary artist whose practice explores the relationship between painting, object, space and perception. Working primarily with acrylic and graphite, she creates bold, gestural works that investigate movement, materiality, light and the tension between surface and void.

Scott graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, with a Master of Fine Arts with First Class Honours in 2012. She was awarded the Elam Prize for Painting and the Glaister Ennor Masters Graduate Art Award. Her practice was initially rooted in sculpture, and this continues to influence her approach to space, illusion, material and light.

Her paintings sit between image and object, often challenging the viewer’s expectations of what a painting can be. Confident brushwork, fluid contours, negative space and carefully considered compositions create works that are simultaneously atmospheric, visceral and physically present.

Scott is interested in creating images that reveal and withhold at the same time, allowing ambiguity and multiple interpretations to remain central to the viewing experience. Her work has been exhibited widely and is held in private and corporate collections in New Zealand and internationally.

She lives and works from her studio in Onewhero, Waikato.