ARTIST SCARLETT RAVEN
My work embodies creation through movement and action. Layered with continual development, the painting evolves alongside me as an artist: a recorded journey of my feelings, experiences, insecurities and ideas.
Painting makes me aware of my body, it’s like a swan plucking at its feathers, it’s the time when I feel like me and I feel my self, without it I have no idea who I am. It is an essential process of catharsis, as I feel any art form is for any artist. It’s the time when my heart rate slows to normal and I feel calm and clear, if I didn’t paint I’m certain I would go insane. From the moment my crayon hit the paper when I was four everything suddenly made sense and I haven’t stopped since. As I’ve developed as an artist I’ve found myself returning to the child in me as I strive to regain that pure, uninhibited, unpretentious expression all children naturally have. When I drew my first drawing I was a genius, now I am just a copycat.
I want to move people with a shock of emotion, to free them for a moment from the confines of their conscious minds by making them aware of their own presence within the painting. There they have a new landscape to explore themselves in. My use of sculpture and thick layers of paint gives a third dimension, which can draw the viewer in and will move with the viewer around the room as the light and shadow shifts with them. To me life is endless, unstoppable movement and I use that in my style of painting. I want to break everything back down to the raw essence of who we are and what we are. My use of crude materials such as sticks and mud and almost childish expression, simplistic lines and bold colours underpin that intention. When I paint I throw my entire body and being into it, it’s a very physical, rough, passionate process and I never know until I step back what the end result will be.
In this body of work I wish to depict the catastrophic effects of human avarice and our desire to breed and spread and consume endlessly while the rest of the world tries to balance out our excesses. I also want to show the hope, the essential good I believe to exist within us and the abundant beauty we are still surrounded by and can work to preserve. Redemption, creation, birth and its struggle, its frantic, frightening, stunning, liberating journey, the same journey we are all on, are all strong themes in my work.
Animals are a great source of inspiration too, as is transportation, migration and movement. Flamingos, for example, shows the devastation caused by human expansion versus the birds’ attempts to co-exist along side us and fly free from our spreading mess. Beauty in the face of aggression, triumph over confusion, elegance and dignity in the face of chaos. Nature and the animal kingdom can teach us so much, tearing away our preconceptions and pretensions to reveal us as essential, magnificent sentient beings who are part of their world, as opposed to ego driven power-maniacs, working against it to achieve transient, delusional glory. This idea of transience is echoed throughout my work, particularly prevalent in Flowerpot, Tsunami and Deckchairs, where the innocent nostalgia of the naïve, consumerist abundance of the 50s is juxtaposed against the resulting ruin decades later.
The purpose of my work is not dictate my ideas but rather to inspire the viewer to ask those questions that, in turn, have inspired me. I want us to see ourselves with new, innocent yet wise eyes, to see what we are, what we’ve become and what we could be.
Scarlett Raven was born in Chichester in 1986. She began painting at the age of four and attended the prestigious Central Saint Martins. Scarlett is daughter to writer, Siobhan Cunningham, and saxophone player, Raf Ravenscroft (band member; Pink Floyd, Abba, Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner and of the Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street fame), she is granddaughter to Trevor Ravenscroft writer of the best seller 'The Spear of Destiny'.
At the beginning of her BA in Fine Art, Scarlett began to be recognized as an artistic talent, and was asked to participate in a variety of group shows. Just into the second year of her BA, at the age of twenty-one Scarlett had her first solo showSeascapeson London's Cork Street. Scarlett was, and is, one of the youngest artists to have a solo exhibition on this famed street; and her entry into the art world as a professional artist captured much media attention.
Scarlett counts Orlando Bloom (actor), Jim Beach (Manager of rock band, Queen), members and management of Take That, Chairman of Lonhro Oil David Lenigas and Lord Jonathan Marland as collectors of her works. 2007 marked a commission for the Live Nations London HQ.
Scarlett's heritage, passion for music, and desire to reach a diverse group of people through her art has led her to collaborate with a variety of musical talents. She has designed artwork for;
The Wire Daisies– album and video artwork, managed by Jim Beech.
David Saw - album artwork Broken Down Figure (produced by Ben Taylor, son of James Taylor and Carly Simon),
The Metaphors - artwork for Roxy Music's Andy Mackay, Paul Thompson new band
Prince Harry’s Sentebale Charity– single cover artwork, The Beautiful Game.
Working with music artists has allowed Scarlett to stretch her artistic vision further, and begin to realize her future goal of creating works that will have the opportunity to be seen outside the confines of the gallery space, and be able to reach a wider audience.
Scarlett Raven's love affair with oil paint has landed her in CASS ART’s latest PAINT THIS TOWN print campaign launched across the UK. The campaign showcases Scarlett, her overalls and Winsor & Newton artists' oil 200ml oil colour range. A huge honour for Scarlett as she has been using Winsor & Newton oils since she was 10 years of age.
She is currently living in West Sussex, preparing for her next solo show.
‘’Whenever I run my eyes through a painting I try and see the sculptural aspects in each work promoted by the thickness of the paint. My aim is to make the viewer become encompassed by the work. I want my work to be viewed as if in constant motion, not to be seen as a still image, always moving, creating a platform for a narrative.’’
Scarlett Raven
£0 for 10 months with Own Art.
