Iris Scott, is a Brooklyn based, phenomenal artist that is taking the world by storm. Born in 1984 and named after a Greek goddess, Iris Scott lived a pretty normal childhood in a tiny farm located near Seattle. While her hipster parents took care of the household, Iris had plenty of time to expand her creative horizons and dive into drawing books which she got from the library.
Undistracted by television, Iris was left to indulge in other forms of entertainment. She imitated images that she got from other photographs and paintings. Surrounded by woodlands that entranced their farm and unending variety of pets, Iris and her sister were never bored. Since practice makes perfect, she spent hours on end horning her craft. She was to bend a few art rules in the future, despite her unawareness at the time.
She progressed towards high school expanding her craft. After attaining a Bachelors Degree in Fine Art from Washington State University, she moved to Taiwan, where she opened her mind to her creative juices away from the stifling life in Seattle. She was eager to merge her two passions of art and photography.
By sheer laziness, Iris Scott stumbled upon finger painting by accident while in living in Taiwan back in 2010. As the story goes, she was painting some yellow colored flowers when she realised all her brushes were dirty. Eager to get the painting done, she took a few swabs of oil paint and used her fingertips to control the paint. A light bulb went on and she realised that she had discovered and mastered the technique that was finger painting. She set out the next day to acquire surgical gloves that would be part of her now famous trade.
Her style of painting
Iris Scott is known to have adopted her own unique version of textural impressionism. She says “I want my paintings to be both an escape from our everyday life, and an intensification of the recognizable.” She is known to combine over 100 colors at a time to attain vibrancy and fluid movements. Her heavy set finger painting technique allows her paintings to portray normal life as dreamy and dynamic.
She has inspired millions of artists all over the world to abandon their expensive painting brushes and use their fingers. Due to the time spent in her childhood home surrounded by animals and rainy days she is able to portray any kind of flora and fauna with utmost intensity. She said herself, “There’s a denseness to those woods that has stayed with me. The trees were draped in moss, and play days were drenched with rain, animal and plant life blooming from every nook.”
She is especially known for her “shaking dogs” where she captures the motion as if frozen in time. She likes travelling to different parts of the world in order to capture different scenes and color pallet. Armed with her camera and surgical gloves she is an unstoppable force of art.
Growth and Success
Iris Scott has now become a famous artist having her paintings hang in different high profile galleries. Her art shows sell out as she has acquired millions of fans. Her paintings have received recognition from big multinational companies like Microsoft and Coca Cola, who have in turn bought her paintings. Her works have graced Swedish Medicare centers and children’s hospitals as away of cheering them up and as a form of therapy.
Though she is overly busy due to various bookings, Iris Scott makes time to teach others. She released a how- to book back 2016 titled Finger Painting Weekend Workshop, to aid others into the world of impressionistic finger painting art. She is passionate about her work and she shares all on social media platforms like Instagram, Youtube and Facebook so that her fans can learn from them. She is like the mother Teresa of finger painting.
She also does her very best to make her prints available as she is of the notion that hoarding does not respect the future of art. Scott does not believe in over charging for her paintings. She says she has been steadily increasing the price of her paintings from 2010 and only charges high but fair prices when available prints are overwhelmed by the number of demands.
With her trail blazing antics, Iris Scott is set to be one of the 21st century most influential artists. Her work is in such demand you have to book her a year ahead, if you want a project done by her. We as the art community salute her for her brilliance and trend setting ways. Her name will surely be stumped among the legends of art throughout history.