“Jack of all trades, master of none,” warns the adage. Yet for Melbourne-based artist Scotty So, the caution hardly applies, for versatility is the very foundation of his mastery. From performance to sculpture, video to photography, So’s practice encompasses a variety of mediums, each serving as a lens to examine themes of authenticity, legacy, and the passage of time. In an art world that often prizes specialisation, So prefers the infinite, at times unexpected, possibilities of range. For So, the act of creation never limits itself to a single form. Instead, his creation evolves, adapting to changing ideas and intentions.

When Jasmine Penman met So over a glass of wine on a warm afternoon in late November, he was in the final stage of preparing for his debut solo show at MARS Gallery. Over a year in the making, the exhibition, titled Maybe She Was There, responds to these dual themes of transience and legacy. The latest body of work, equally playful and poignant, explores the concept of leaving a trace when memory is all that remains.

JASMINE PENMAN What have you been up to this week?

SCOTTY SO What have I been up to? My memory has become so shit recently. I’ve just been going to the gym and getting ready for my show at MARS. Oh, and I’m going to the VCA Graduate Show tomorrow night.

JP Does it feel like a lifetime ago that you were at VCA?

SS Yeah, I was a young boy with ambitious dreams, thinking that I could take over the world.

JP And now you’re...

SS Now, I’m slowing down and enjoying the moment. I think I’ve learnt how to be happy in the process of making work and exploring where I can take my practice.

JP Let’s talk about your solo show at MARS Gallery, Maybe She Was There. The show is about legacy, among other things. What about the idea of legacy interests you?

SS I’ve been thinking a lot about my family. Some members of my family passed away over these past few years. During this time, I’ve also been watching my friends have babies and get married. I think I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m seeing life move forward. I’ve also been thinking a lot about turning 30 next year. I see it as my twink death [laughs].

JP Tell me more [laughs].

SS I know it’s funny, but it’s also real. I know I can’t be tied to my drag persona forever. I’m changing intensely. And I’m interested in that feeling of wanting to hold onto something, whether that be youth, elegance, or beauty. This show is about the idea of preserving our time as mortals.

JP Your longtime drag persona Scarlett appears in many of the show's works. Do you think your relationship with her is changing as you age?

SS I think it’s more a realisation that she won’t stay the same forever. I'm contemplating preserving her, her beauty, and her youth, as I know I won't be able to continue performing drag forever. My body is undergoing changes, just as I am. That’s why this show is all about finding different ways to preserve her and her beauty. I've come to the realisation that the concept of beauty is absurd and unattainable. Nobody can be immortal. But I don’t think it matters. The work becomes more about the process of trying to find immortality.

JP I remember you telling me once that you believe that a person only dies when the last person who knew them also dies.

SS Yeah. I do believe that you only truly die when the memory of you dies. But I think it’s possible for images to live on forever. Look at Marilyn Monroe, for example. She still lives on in people’s minds. For Scarlett, my way of preserving her legacy is by continuing to make work about her. I think I have always played with Scarlett as a kind of time traveller. The work I do with Scarlett has always been about exploring the authenticity of time by placing her in different eras. To me, she was already timeless, but I want to leave her name and her image here.

JP What about your own legacy as an artist? Do you think about this much?

SS I guess I don’t really think much about my own legacy. I do want people to remember my work. Some of my works are in public institutions, and I know that they will probably last longer than I will. At the same time, I know that when I’m gone, it won’t really matter at all. I think legacy is a very contradictory idea. On the one hand, it’s out of our control. On the other hand, it’s a natural human desire to want to hold onto something bigger than ourselves.

JP I suppose this serves one of the purposes of art.

SS I think art, or at least good art, is about responding to the current world and creating something that can withstand changing conditions.

JP When did you realise that you wanted to be an artist?

SS I don’t know, maybe when I was three?

JP Really?

SS I don’t know why, but I always wanted to be an artist.

JP Was there a particular catalyst, or do you feel like you’ve just always had an impulse to create images?

SS I think I’ve always had an impulse, actually. And being an artist is one of those jobs where you can be creating something new all the time. I remember looking at Leonardo Da Vinci when I was young and seeing how art can be anything, or how an artist can be anything. I’ve always admired that.

JP This was in Hong Kong, right?

SS Yeah. We learnt about the Renaissance and Rococo and the Impressionists and Abstract Expressionism, then we learnt about Abstract art, Pop art, and Contemporary art. It was very Western-centric. But these were the times when I thought art is amazing. These days, I don’t have much feeling for Pop art and Abstract Expressionism.

JP Do you feel like your stylistic preferences have changed?

SS I don’t think I ever change stylistically as an artist. I think the world is changing, and I just live and work among these changes. For me, the work always needs to be responding to what I’m feeling. And what I’m feeling is responding to what is happening. Sometimes people say to me, “Why did you change from making the masks to making these new works? Your style has changed so much.” But I don’t think I’ve ever had or needed a style. My work has always been about responding to the world.

JP And is that why you feel comfortable working across mediums?

SS I think so. As I said before, the work is about capturing my current state of mind. And I have to figure out what medium best translates that state of mind. I mean, if you ask me now, my current state of mind is that my body is changing and I’m feeling like I can’t really “do” Scarlett as I could in the past. That’s why I’m finding ways to create work that relates to the idea of Scarlett while still approaching her using a new methodology.

JP I want to ask you about a specific work in the show, Dream of a Floating Life. It’s a life-sized model of Scarlett, and it really feels like the centrepiece of the show.

SS This work is a reference to a movie star from Shanghai who was working in the 1930s. Her name was Ruan Linyu, and she was one of the first movie stars in China. At the age of 24, Ruan Linyu committed suicide, leaving a lasting legacy in her films. She was one of the original inspirations for Scarlett. I was thinking about how I can preserve Scarlett in her form forever, given that I won’t be able to continue performing her forever. If I were to mourn the death of Scarlett, this is how I would want to remember her.

JP The work you've created about Scarlett feels like a significant milestone, as it's the first to exist independently beyond your role as a performer. Have you seen The Substance?

SS I have. “Remember, you are one.”

JP Exactly [laughs]. Scarlett has always existed as a part of you, in a physical sense. This new work feels like the first time you've literally cast her out.

SS She has always represented the feminine side of me. Now I’m creating work that doesn’t need my body. By creating the imagery, or the sculpture of Scarlett instead of having it tied up with my performance of Scarlett, I’m separating her from myself.

JP. Recently, you've been experimenting with generative AI, using this new technology to create many of your works. How do you see AI serving your practice?

SS For me, AI is just another medium that allows me to create an image. But creating the image isn’t the final step. I know a lot of AI artists and they make great work. But a lot of the time, I think it stays in the ‘AI-generated image’ category. When you put the image together with other AI artist images, you can’t really tell the difference between them. I think if people can see the AI "aesthetic," then it’s not a successful work of art. My approach to AI is to view it as the initial stage of completing an image, but I need to use various mediums to add layers that contribute to the image's overall meaning. For example, there are two works in the exhibition that are hand-painted, black-and-white images. They resemble hand-coloured photographs from the 1910s and 1920s. These were all printed in the darkroom, but they were also AI-generated. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t hand paint them myself. The processing is still with me. I’m using AI to take the first step, but the work can’t stop at that first step.

JP AI is another tool in an artist's toolkit, similar to how Photoshop became a part of a photographer's toolkit in the 1990s.

SS I think that’s definitely the case. I want to add that AI itself can’t create on its own. Everything comes from human input and existing images. I think that’s why it works in the context of my practice because all my work is related to images that already exist. My work is all about taking elements of different things, merging them together, and altering them to make the audience question whether it is real. Ask, 'Is it authentic?’. I think if you’re just trying to create something pretty, AI can do a good job, but the work wouldn’t expand from there. I think that’s what the problem with AI is. A lot of the time, people don’t see AI as art because many of the artists that use AI aren’t working with a strong concept. They’re not necessarily thinking about why they need to use AI or what the purpose of AI is. If you can create the work with another medium and if that medium can communicate the same idea, and you’re just using AI to make the work quicker, then I don’t think that’s a successful work.

JP It’ll be interesting to see how AI shapes visual culture in the long-term. I think it’s clear that our relationship to the image is changing.

SS Yeah. But I will always believe that beauty within an artwork is important. It’s what makes fine art ‘fine’. The art doesn’t need to be ‘fine’ in terms of construction, but there needs to be a certain ‘fineness’ within it. Art needs to evoke a certain emotion from the viewer. I don’t see this changing.