Lotte Scott was born in London in 1990 and grew up in Somerset. She studied BA Art Practice at Goldsmiths University and MFA Sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art. Lotte is the recipient of the 2020 Gilchrist Fisher Award for artists under 30 working with the theme of Landscape. She now lives and works in south Somerset.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My artwork explores place, time and material. I am interested in how people have lived with the land throughout history, how earth materials have been extracted, mined, worked and farmed by humans. In this time of ecological crisis, it has never felt more important to reflect on the earth and how it sustains us. I see my artwork as a way of attending to nature and recognising myself as part of it.
Since 2013 my work has been primarily focused on the peat moors of the Somerset Levels, examining the indexical nature of peat as a living archive of land and people. This is a place that distills and suspends ancient matter, where a wealth of prehistoric archaeology has been unearthed by centuries of destructive peat cutting. These apposing themes of preservation and destruction are explored in much of my work. Working with sculpture and drawing, I use materials gathered directly from the landscape – peat, bogwood, pyrolised wood and beeswax. Pieces are often fragile, shifting and unfixable, referencing both the prehistory, traditional industry and contemporary conservation work of the moors.
