Scout Zabinski (b. 1997, New Jersey) is a self-taught artist based in Los Angeles California. She holds a BA from the Gallatin School at NYU, where she studied psychology, postcolonial feminism, art history and literature.

Scout Zabinski had her debut solo exhibition Into the Veil with Carl Kostyál in London (2023) after having participated in the Draw Jam residency in 2022. Her second solo exhibition, Violin Theory at Hospitalet (2024) was the artist’s debut in Stockholm. Zabinski’s works are included in the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, West Palm Beach, USA and her recent solo exhibitions include Now You See Me, Seasons LA (2022) and Hard and Fast, adhesivo contemporary, CDMX, Mexico (2022). Her recent group shows include I am Not Afraid of Ghosts, Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, Venice (2024) and KIAF SEOUL, Carl Kostyál, Seoul (2023).

You intertwine art historical references with deeply personal themes. How do you see your work as both a continuation and a transformation of the artistic canon?  

Towards the beginning of my career, I think my work was more of a personal response to the aesthetics of history paintings like Botticelli, Manet, Titian, etc. I was super young when I started, self-taught and trying for a while to prove to myself and others that I could make some sort of magic with paint. Because that’s what I experienced in museums like the Ufizzi.

I think where my work differs though from those paintings is that the objectification is turned inward. I am both the voyeur and the viewed. And now with this new body of work, I’ve kind of heightened that sense of objectness. Instead of trying to re-create Primavera, I’m more interested in how my paintings liken me to Duchamp’s  Fountain, and if my likeness is then how reduced can all of our identities be. So I guess I’m constantly in conversation with the artistic canon, but how I react and what the dialogue is at any given time depends on where I, and we are, in the present moment. And I mean, it’s a political time. 

Self-portraiture elicits vulnerability and visibility. How have your personal experiences influenced your evolving self-portraits? 

It’s interesting because I began making self-portraits in an effort to see myself more clearly at a time where I really didn’t know who I was or even like myself that much. I gave away the parts of me in the paintings and in my life that other people wanted or thought were shiny because it felt obligatory and for a while was the way I understood and even appreciated myself. Through how others saw me. 

But, I’ve been painting self-portraits for years now, and the funny thing is it’s made me very detached from my image which I’ve come to think is a good thing. When I make a painting of myself, I don’t really see me. I see a woman sure but really I focus on whether or not it’s a good painting, the composition, the emotion, the spirit of it I guess. And I think in a time where so many people rely upon, alter, use, or manipulate their appearances, I’m happy to have found some sense of detachment. It’s like asking if a memory is real. Of course, it is but also can you give shape to that outside your mind? How could a person’s existence be any less complicated?

Your paintings engage with themes of gender, autonomy, and societal constraints. How do you use surrealism and self-portraiture to challenge or redefine these narratives?

Some of my favorite paintings I’ve made recently, or honestly this whole new series of paintings I’ve been working on, are these portraits of a face with an object like a pawn, lipstick, or a lighter covering the nose or other features. They are the sister paintings to larger nude self-portraits with human-sized pawns, lipstick, and lighters.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Still life motif I guess and why over the course of history, painters have been so drawn to studying and spending hours immortalizing objects. But some people, many many people, will never be immortalized in pigment the way a rose or a tea kettle or bowl of grapes will. It’s almost like the essence of a spirit could be defined or summarized by objects, but if an object possesses that much power, then what is the difference between our spirit and the inanimate. Or a step further, God and the inanimate. And if a bowl of grapes may live forever, then why do we fear death at all? I mean I’ve been born into this body, but I think instead of focusing on my own personal experiences now in the paintings, I’m more intrigued by where the boundaries are, where the line is drawn between you and me, myself and a flame, you and your reflection, or us and eternity.  

You’ve spoken about the difficulty of truly capturing a moment, despite your controlled and detailed technique. How do you reconcile the transient nature of experience with the permanence of painting?  

I think it’s a two-sided coin. On the one hand, as an artist, I will spend an infinite amount of time attempting to capture the most finite of moments, to preserve them, and share with others. But painting and art is actually quite fleeting too. Every time I ship out works for a show, I refer to the aftermath as postpartum. It’s like giving birth. You spend hours, days, months creating a pristine shrine to a memory to just send it away forever in an instant. Sure, it exists in the physical realm longer than a memory, at least to our human understanding of time. But it’s as painful as death or a breakup sometimes, and over the years it’s made me question my role and mission as an artist. 

Something I realized pretty early on though was that it wasn’t actually the paintings that made me an artist. The smallest of moments in my daily life enable me to make paintings whether that’s listening to birds outside my house in the morning or spending extra time on my drive home to stop and look at the sunset. I prioritize my life being my greatest artwork, and you have to be present for that, to fully squeeze the juice out of those moments. 

The actual painting part is as transient and fleeting as every passing second in some ways, but I guess by looking at my practice as a more complete and inclusive spectrum, I make art all the time. There’s less pressure to capture it when it encompasses everything. That’s also why my work has transitioned to include more sculpture and photography because on a daily basis, I don’t just make art with oil paint. My first artistic language was with words and I just finished a poetry book I’ve been working on for about four years. I journal every day. I photograph everything (I mean I have stacks of photo albums already in my living room). I sculpt when I need to play or fail softly. All of that informs my paintings. 

You’ve mentioned wanting audiences to bring their own perspectives to your work. How does the idea of open interpretation shape the way you create?  

I’m not sure if it necessarily shaped the way I created much for a while or if it even still does now. My work begins with something typically deeply personal, even if that just means my naked body. People tend to label my work and often me as extremely vulnerable, which I’m not saying I disagree with, but what I show isn’t necessarily the deepest layers of the onion. And I think that’s true for everyone, there’s a lot more beneath the surface. I mention that because while it seems like I give a lot to the viewer, I leave much more unsaid. I no longer paint my tattoos or my rings, and sometimes not even my birthmark, but I think more importantly, I don’t detail where the painting stems from or where I conceived the idea or any emotion behind it. I try to keep the figure’s gaze fairly blank, acknowledging her audience, but allowing each person’s story to fill her mind. She’s a veil and mirror and a sort of glass half full. 

You’ve mentioned exploring photography and testing the boundaries of what constitutes an original work of art. What excites you about this shift, and how do you see it expanding your practice?  

I’ve always used photography as a part of my practice from the very first self-portrait I made. I did my first nude photo shoot when I was 20 years old and a few months later, put together a digital collage that would become the first painting. I don’t usually share these because A) they are me actually naked and B) they’re not perfectly made, they’re more the general composition for future paintings. But after building the sculpture of the sardine can for my Stockholm solo, I realized not only could I make the painting exist in real life, but I could also invite people into the painting themselves. I’m really excited about this because as the paintings have become less personal, I’ve wondered how to expand the narrative from the individual to the collective, and this seems like the perfect opportunity.

There’s also been more of a reliance on technology in Art, which I’ve debated a lot since I associate Art with the handmade. People have often commented that my paintings appear flat, but I think this is a misclassification. My paintings are smooth and seamless. Instead of a typical underpainting in umbers and burnt sienna, I paint what one sees as the finished painting 2 to 3 times to build up opacity and vibrancy almost like a screen print. That alongside painting the same figure with the same features probably over 100 times now has a machine-like quality to it. I’m kind of a meticulous, painstaking conveyor belt. 

That’s why I also want to include the photography and sculpture, to give another form to something that I feel like I’ve perfected. I want the paintings to look like butter, the sculptures to make you feel like you’re entering an oil painting, and the photographs to make you question if we can after all, perhaps capture that moment. 

Can you tell us about what you are currently work on and what you have on the horizon for upcoming projects and shows?

This year somehow got very busy very quickly, and I feel very blessed to be showing in a number of shows with galleries I’ve never worked with before. For each of these shows, I’m making paintings around one object, and that object will also exist as a sculptural set for the audience to interact with, like with the sardine can and my painting Conservas. I have a group show coming up with Room 57 Gallery in New York in May during Frieze, a group show with PIERMARQ* in Australia, and then a small solo exhibition in Madrid with Rafael Peréz Hernando, and potentially a couple other small things in the works as well. I feel really blessed. I’m really just having fun. Waking up excited every day to get to the studio and dig a little deeper into this new direction. I can’t wait to share it with everyone.