Indian Paintbrush (Original)

Iris Scott (b.1984) grew up in Maple Valley, Washington on what she describes as a “one-family hippie commune”. She and her sister spent evenings listening to their mother, a writer, tell epic tales about the anthropomorphized lives of the family’s pet parrots, lizards, cats, goats, and rabbits—with wild coyotes appearing in the stories as special guest stars. Iris’ father, a custom cabinet maker, worked in a shop attached to the house, and Iris absorbed how a woodworker manifests their ideas with their hands. Iris continues the family’s storytelling tradition of magical realism, like her mother, and emulates her father by building the worlds she imagines with her hands.

Scott’s college years were spent in Florence, in the same centuries-old halls where Raphael, Michelangelo, and Da Vinci worked. In her mid twenties Iris moved to a tiny apartment overlooking a rainforest outside of Kaohsiung, Taiwan. There she stumbled upon finger painting when a serendipitous lack of clean brushes prompted her to finish a painting with her fingertips. In that moment she recognized how fingers could scoop oil paint better than brushes, and overnight she committed to leaving her brushes behind. Scott worked exclusively as an oil finger painter from 2010 to 2020.

Her journey as a finger-painter took her to New York, where she lived and worked in a Brooklyn loft space for six years. The bustling energy of New York led Iris, in 2019, to seek isolation and solitude in Northern New Mexico. In 2020 the artist and her husband, a writer, purchased 500 acres overlooking Ghost Ranch, where Georgia O’Keeffe had once famously painted. Together the creative pair built a house and studio adjacent to national wilderness. Their adobe home sits perched on the edge of a canyon, within walking distance from caves, dinosaur bones, native ruins, and petroglyphs.

Much like the accidental discovery of finger painting over a decade ago, Iris happened upon another brush-free painting technique soon after she moved to New Mexico. While cleaning dust off a wet artwork with her shop air compressor, Iris inadvertently blasted surprising and beautiful circular marks into the surface of the fresh paint. Iris recognized the potential of the air compressor’s marks immediately. Ever since that day Iris has emphatically pursued a new body of work she calls “air paintings”.

Iris Scott is represented by Adelman Fine Art in San Diego, California

We are currently accepting Iris Scott commissions! Want your own shakin’ dog or a beautiful landscape? Please contact us via 619-354-5969,  email, or our contact page, for more information. Ready to reserve your spot on Iris Scott’s commission timeline? Make your refundable deposit here.

Q & A WITH IRIS SCOTT

AFA: What were you like in high school?
Iris: “In high school I was pretty quiet, though I loved sports and art classes. I didn’t party at all, but sort of tended to hurry home and do homework. I liked school, I liked projects, and the more difficult a class was the more I liked it. I don’t think I would have been called so much a ‘dork’ as I was just a ‘sporty academic’ type. I hope nobody from high school remembers me as a rude person, I don’t remember being rude, but being a bully and not remembering it is one of my biggest fears.”

AFA: Where would you go in a time machine?
Iris: “I spend most of my non-art time researching pre-history, mainly 12,000 – 25,000 years ago. I believe it is a period of lost human history that includes Atlantis. So… I think I would choose to visit the earth in a time machine at about 13,000 years ago. I could see who really built these global megalithic structures such as the pyramids. No doubt I would learn the mystery of Atlantis, because sea levels would be low at that time, and if it existed it would be bustling!“

AFA: What gives you your greatest joy?
Iris: “Fantasizing about the future of my own painting, and the future of our society at large. I’m quite a daydreamer.”

AFA: What item in your closet do you wear the most?
Iris: “Jeans and a dark grey v-neck T-shirt.”

AFA: What are the last 3 charges on your credit card?
Iris: “Indian takeout, FedEx label, double-sided sticky tape so my cat stops trying to destroy my new sofa. Damn her!”

AFA: What is your greatest indulgence?
Iris: “Paint. I buy an obscene volume of paint to keep up with the thick texture I like to paint.”

AFA: Who are your heroes?
Iris: “Martin Luther King – for teaching non violent protesting. Elizabeth Warren – for being a badass female politician.”

AFA: What is on your bucket list?
Iris: “Scuba diving.”

AFA: Who is on the guest list for your ideal dinner party?
Iris: “Bernie Sanders, Oscar Wilde, Frida Khalo, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Sasha Grafit, Vincent Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, Picasso, Munch, Singer Sargent, Sal Kahn, and a handful of close friends.”

AFA: What is best gift you ever received?
Iris: “A handmade book/love letter from my honey.”

AFA: Do you collect anything?
Iris: “Indoor plants. Yeah, I’m trying to turn my house into ‘Where The Wild Things Are.”

AFA: If you could have any super power which one would you choose?
Iris: “Flight.”

AFA: What do you believe is a key element in creating a good composition?
Iris: “Eliminating that which is not really improving the scene.”

AFA: What’s your most significant project to date?
Iris: “I’m currently the artist-of-hire for a major beverage company in Spain and will travel there twice this year to attend a 2000-person launch party.”

AFA: How do you want to be remembered as an artist?
Iris: “I want to go down in history as the most collected and well known painter, whom also happened to be a woman. Hence, I want to break the glass ceiling so that girls across the world know they can do it too.”

AFA: Why do you think your finger paintings are so popular with so many people, all over the world?
Iris: “Color, movement, and texture. Mainly I think my images are easy to interpret because they’re open-ended. People see their own sisters, pets, homes, country sides.”

AFA: Tell us about your solo show experience at Adelman Fine Art last year?
Iris: “They know how to throw a party. We had an unbelievable turnout of standing room only. Lots of sales, I can’t wait to do it again.”