ARTIST STATEMENT

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The purpose of a portrait is to memorialize an image of someone for the future. I use
fingerprints to make a new, abstract, untraditional form of portraiture.
It is common knowledge that fingerprints are our most visible, completely unique
characteristic. By merging science, humanity and the age-old art of portraiture; I explore
the identity of the individual through an abstract interpretation of their personality at a
particular place in time anchored by the one timeless constant that makes them
completely unique. The lines and whorls contained in a fingerprint allow me a
framework within which I can explore the spirit of an individual and describe a
psychological narrative on them through my painting.

Decisions of color, line, negative space, and the amount of information in the work all
relate directly to my sense of the individual's personality, energy or aura.
I literally fingerprint the individual, and via technology enlarge that image enough to read
the information to use as a unique guide. The fingerprint in and of itself, so beautifully
conveys the narrative of each individual’s experience and life story. I find so much
information within the whorls and lines belonging to each person that correlates directly
to their quality of life and the specific circumstances they have been exposed to
throughout their lifetime.

What I find intriguing about this process is that the fingerprint, unless subjected to
extreme conditions, will remain the same throughout one’s life. However, as individual's
we are in constant transition, so I am able to revisit a subject throughout their lifetime
and create a whole new work based on time and place.

In a world that is becoming ever more homogenous while at the same time more
intensely divided by gender, race, religion and political views; I choose to keep my
subjects visually anonymous while at the same time exposing their only truly unique
physical identifier.

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BIOGRAPHY

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Suzanne Scott (b. 1973, New Jersey) is a New York City-based artist working in
oil on canvas. She attended Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University,
and later studied human anatomy at The Art Student’s League of NY in the late
1990s. Scott’s work focuses on non-traditional portraiture based on fingerprints
informed by her education and interest in anatomy and forecsics. Her subjects,
who she knows personally, are fingerprinted and interviewed. Beginning with
observation, their fingerprints are reevaluated, reformulated, and retranslated
through a painting process rooted in abstraction and intuitive decision making.
The subject’s print acts as the scientific basis to develop a psychological,
emotional “portrait”.

Since 2017, Scott has completed three advanced, post-graduate residencies in
painting and lithography; Le Festival de Bargemon, France, The Meeting House
in NY, and Chateau Orquevaux, France. She has exhibited nationally and
internationally, most recently with a solo exhibition in New York City at Art of Our
Century Gallery, as well as group shows in Art Basel Miami, Aqua Art Fair, the
Beddington Gallery in Bargemon, France, and the GemLuc Art Exposition in
Monaco. Scott is currently represented in the South of France, New York City
and Austria. She was nominated three times for the Rome Prize at the American
Academy in Rome, and was proposed for an award through the Academy of Arts
and Letters in 2017. Scott is currently a board member for the non-profit Artistic
Realization Techniques (A.R.T.), President of the board for the non-profit,
HealthMatr, and served a year tenure as Vice President of the board for The
Rare Disease Foundation from 2018-19. She has recently been interviewed and
published by Blanc Magazine, Portray Magazine, and Conception Arts; SmartArt
Business, with an anticipated interview in Gum Gazette.