Ian Scott produced his first Lattice painting in 1976, and prior to this, had practiced in a representational and figurative manner, his anti-establishment approach saw him depicting self-assured landscapes and barely clad nubile woman that sought to challenge the viewers perception of current art practices.

Part of the modernist movement in New Zealand art during the 1970s, Scott is and was a leading force behind abstraction, seeking a painterly language that did not rely on figurative or literal meaning. Scott's iconic Lattice paintings are perhaps his most significant and an enduring contribution to the development of New Zealand art. Over the following decades, Scott has expanded on the Lattice form as a means of painterly expression. The hard edged geometric abstraction of Ian Scott's Lattice series focuses on the intense interface between colour, line and form within a grid formation. Like an assault of licorice allsorts, flat bands of hightened colour, interwoven with black and white, play optical illusions, the eye is forced to stop and start as it tries to read the length or width of each strip. Of his technique the artist reveals, 'I lay down the bands with masking tape, shifting the width intuitively until it feels right.' He explains 'I paint the colours directly, I never over paint or alter them if something is wrong with the colour or paint thickness or proportion I destroy the work and start again.'

Born in 1945, Ian Scott and his painting career is in its fifth decade. He is a major New Zealand artist of the Post-McCahon generation who has remained innovative and relentlessly experimental throughout his career.