Xanthe Scout

Xanthe Scout (b.1998) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily across painting, sculpture and text. Scout’s practice is process-led and materially driven, particularly through her use of watered-down substrates. Working loosely, playfully, and humorously, Scout’s processes recruit accidents as a theoretical and material strategy to consider form, shape, positive and negative space in composition, as well as language and storytelling. Indeed, accidents disrupt the notion of a complete story or a straight trajectory, and embody a meeting point whereby imagined and actual events intersect. 

 Scout graduated from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2021. She was shortlisted for the 2024 ANNA Award and presented her first solo exhibition, EXIT STRATEGY, with 99 Loop Gallery the same year. In 2025 she staged a solo artist room with Smac Gallery, reviewed by Sean O’Toole in Frieze. Other projects include curating the group show Offcuts at the Association for Visual Arts (2024), participating in ARAK Collective’s Critical Art Writing Workshop (2024), and her participation in the Sessions mentorship programme, which culminated in the exhibition Pomegranate in the same year. She has exhibited with the Association for Visual Arts, Graham Contemporary, RK Contemporary, 99 Loop Gallery, and various independent curatorial projects since her graduation in 2021. 

 Scout lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa.