Ian Scott had a long and distinguished career which cemented his place at the forefront of New Zealand art. Beginning as a landscape artist, he moved initially to surrealist-tinged representationalism, before moving to the geometrical abstraction for which he is best known.

These geometries led in the mid-1970s to the start of his extended Lattice series. This combined the influence of modernist abstraction with traditional weaving patterns, simultaneously bringing together styles from his birthplace — Bradford, at the heart of England's historic textiles industry — and the traditional flaxwork of his newly adopted country.  The influence of New Zealand artists ranging from Gordon Walters to Milan Mrkusich is evident in the series, placing the Lattice works firmly within the milieu of late 20th-century New Zealand art. Scott was to return to the theme of the lattice repeatedly during the latter part of his career.

There is never a feeling in Scott's lattices that the images are simply flat patterns. The artist has deliberately used the overlapping strands to give the illusion of a real three-dimensional object. Movement and depth are expertly implied, with the effects of depth repeatedly probed and explored by the artist. The use of rich saturated colour — unusual among his contemporary New Zealand abstractionists — set Scott's work apart as much as his endless combinations of verticals, horizontals, and diagonals.

As the series developed, so too did Scott's use of preliminary drawings and colour studies. While his first lattices were done straight to canvas, Scott soon began making preliminary sketches. These models on paper became more complex and complete as stand-alone works as the series developed.¹ It is these preliminary works which form the basis of the current exhibition.

The series on display can be divided into three groups. Lattice Drawings No. 82, No. 97, and No. 102 appear very much as Scott's full-scale acrylics. The three pieces have virtually identical linear forms, with emphasis placed on differing colour combination. Most striking is the flag-like Lattice Drawing No. 82, in which the colour has been reduced to the three primary hues plus black, each primary demarcating a broad area of the canvas.

The two remaining Lattice Drawings, No. 169 and No. 173, are intriguing experiments in the use of muted line and colour. The resulting pieces almost appear as if they are being seen through soft gauze, and have a haunting, hypnotic quality. The final two works, Number 6 and Untitled, both from 1986, present sections of line, incomplete lattices that are pure colour studies.

In all of these pieces, we get an insight into the working methods and preparatory ideas of one of New Zealand's most important 20th-century Modernist painters.

1. "Ian Scott talks about his Lattice Series", Art New Zealand, Issue 13, Spring, 1979.