22 August 2021
Light on the Land
Ringatoi Ahuwhenua. Rural Creative.
writer: Royna Fifield-Hakaraia (Ngāti Rangatahi, Ngāti Whititama)
photographer: Georgina Hoby Scott, Ali Kimber
After enjoying many years as a freelance textile designer, Georgina Hoby Scutt, took the next natural progression in her artistic career – to pursue a lifelong desire to paint. When her first exhibition, Light on the Land, came together in 2017, Georgina knew she was exactly where she was meant to be. Today, this Nelson-based artist finds herself in a very sweet spot, rendering on canvas, the rustic landscapes and sun-faded palettes of the town she grew up in and adores.
Georgina is fascinated by light. The way it hits the hills and leaves and trees. When she paints, what often ends up on the canvas is more of a feeling than a replica of what she sees. "I'm not necessarily looking at anything when I am painting," she explains. "I am in a constant search to find ways to infuse or commute emotion into each piece. That's where the magic is for me."
A large triptych canvas characteristic of Georgina's semi-abstract, earthy style currently takes up the entire floor of her Nelson-based studio-cum-office. "Sometimes, my work is a purely intuitive, emotional response to what I see," she says. "I can be quite random and loose with my approach, with the colour palette often being the only overarching connection in my pieces. I am intuitively drawn to faded ochres, peachy reads, and soft grey-greens."
Georgina's studio has a computer in the corner, wide French doors that open out to the garden and her home on the other side of the wall - everything the artist needs to create. "My current piece is the largest I have ever been commissioned to paint. I feel like I am going up to a new level and it is stretching me in a good way," she says. "In a sense, I have always been an artist and I've always loved art, but I haven't always been a painter. I have been exposed to so much beautiful art here and overseas. There was always something inside of me, an innate sense, that this is what I was meant to be doing."
Despite her instinctual pull towards art, Georgina, 45, found she had a lot of life to live before she could really give painting her all. Raised in Nelson, Georgina came back eleven years ago with her husband, Johnson, after many years living in London and Spain. "We settled in Nelson because we have family here," she says. "It felt like a really good thing to do, to come back to family after so many years abroad. The beach is right there, and the climate is amazing. Here, daily life doesn't have that hyped-up, stressful feel to it."
Georgina studied design and commerce at Otago University and worked in Wellington, before flying the coup and heading to London. There, she worked in finance and retrained in textile design. She also met Johnson, 47, an Australian-born, vintage wine maker who grew up in New Zealand. The two moved to Barcelona and lived in the L'Eixample neighbourhood; learning the language, shopping daily at the food markets and spending the weekends cycling through the city. Georgina worked from a shared studio space in the old quarter of El Born, in an ancient building, with a window looking out onto the cobble-stoned streets. "It was an amazing, enlightening and liberating time living in Spain," Georgina recounts. "The energy of the Latin-American culture, the way they move and communicate, is utterly captivating. My work is definitely inspired by the European masters, such as Degas and Matisse. Studying those artists and their work is very inspiring to me."
After returning to New Zealand, Georgina settled into motherhood, and now has three children - Ivy, 11, Willoughby, 9, and Lilly, 7 - but painting also kept calling her. The only problem was time. "When I came back to Nelson, I had this growing urge to paint," she says. "Design was a bit easier because I could flick on the computer and do a chunk in half an hour before the baby woke up, but with painting I needed a large amount of dedicated time. I remember I started feeling very frustrated and I would become quite emotional. When I finally got Lilly off to preschool, that's when I had my chance and I completely loved it."
In the beginning, friends helped Georgina put together a few informal exhibitions. With the support of Nelson's very strong art community, the mother of three steadily built up a loyal following that's now become global. "I think one of the hardest things for a lot of artists is figuring out how to get started and how to show your work to get that exposure," she says. "I am very fortunate that I have had a partner who is supportive of my creative work. There are highs and lows when you are first trying to build a practice, and there are definitely sacrifices being made. In the beginning my income from my painting was very minimal - which is normal, to be fair - so having my husband's support took away some of the risk. That's been a cushion that I am very lucky to have."
Georgina is mindful of the constant tension that exists between her two roles as an artist and as a mother. "When something that is a passion becomes a profession or a career, there are all of these tipping points of when it starts to offset other things," she says. "When you are trying to carve out that time and you put your child into an extra day or two of daycare, or when you are not doing the domestic stuff you normally would because you are working. There are all of these decisions and it's a big part of the challenge of this work and lifestyle."
Today, Georgina has exhibited at the Red Gallery in Nelson three years in a row, and she is counting her blessings given what has been a challenging time here in New Zealand and overseas. "In a weird twist, Covid-19 has been really great for a lot of artists," she says. "Because people aren't travelling, many are feathering their nests. I almost can't paint fast enough. It feels like a very sweet time. I have been really lucky that I have had a lot of locals supporting my work."
While her path hasn't taken a straight line, the rewards Georgina has gained since picking up her paintbrush have made it all worthwhile. She has applied her creativity to the rustic New Zealand landscape and found a way to make it uniquely hers. "My work often goes back to the light on the land, and that's what I find myself continuously painting. That illumination is a reoccurring theme for me. Light and shadow."
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This story appeared in the Ngahuru Autumn 2021 Edition of Shepherdess.
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