scarlett raven catalogue
DESCRIPTION
Hay Hill Gallery are delighted to present 'Flight', a series of new works by Scarlett Raven.TRANSCRIPT
My work embodies creat ion th rough 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.
Image courtesy of Steve Hathaway
“Scarlett captures the richness and might of the sea like no other. Her work is breath taking.” - Clare Francis, British Yachtswoman & Best-selling Novelist
Man detail 125 x 92 cm Oil on board
Home 61 x 61 cm Oil on board
Survival detail 60 x 122 cm Oil on board
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.
“I love how bold, courageous and beautiful Scarlett's work is.” - Orlando Bloom
Wild Horses detail 122 x 183 cm Oil on board
City 122 x 122 cm Oil on board
City detail 122 x 122 cm Oil on board
Summer 122 x 122 cm Oil on board
Summer detail 122 x 122 cm Oil on board
Frost detail 58.5 x 122 cm Oil on board
The Meeting detail 121.5 x 76.5 cm Oil on board
White Horses 46 x 61 cm Oil on canvas
Lleuad I 90 x 122 cm Oil on board
Evening 75 x 92 cm Oil on board
Frost 58.5 x 122 cm Oil on board
Lleuad I detail 90 x 122 cm Oil on board
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.
Flight detail 77 x 123 cm Oil on board
Boarders 61 x 122 cm Oil on board
Summer detail 122 x 122 cm Oil on canvas
Survival 61 x 122 cm Oil on board
Survival detail 61 x 122 cm Oil on board
Flamingos 92 x 122 cm Oil on board
Lleuad I detail 90 x 122 cm Oil on board
Black Swan 72 x 71 cm Oil on board
Man detail 125 x 92 cm Oil on board
"I wish for just one day I could borrow Scarlett's eyes and see the world as she does, the depth and colour, the textures. …If Scarlett painted the world then we wouldn't have to worry so much a b o u t g e t t i n g i n t o Heaven.” - Mark Owen (Take That)
Man detail 125 x 92 cm Oil on board
Man detail 125 x 92 cm Oil on board
Race 122 x 122 cm Oil on board
Race detail 122 x 122 cm Oil on board
The Lovers detail 122 x 122 cm Oil on board
The Lovers 122 x 122 cm Oil on board
Tsunami detail 123 x 76.5 cm Oil on board
Wild Horses detail 122 x 183 cm Oil on board
The purpose of my work is not to 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.
Lleuad I detail 90 x 122 cm Oil on board
Summer detail 122 x 122 cm Oil on board
Film still from Scarlett Raven directed by Matthew Lawes Image courtesy of Cass Picture
“Scarlett is an artist through and through with all its dark and light shades, she lives and breathes painting to almost every exclusion. Just like myself when I first picked up a Saxophone – she found her first love. Since the age of 4 for Scarlett there has never been a Plan B. She lays herself bare quite literally and I am enormously proud of her as my daughter and for her brilliant future.” - Raphael Ravenscroft, Composer
Scarlett Raven on set for Cass Art, Windsor and Newton photo shoot
Holding a bulk of paint in your hands feels like you are holding a living organism. You can feel its heartbeat and its fight to survive. The similarities with paint and the body and living things are remarkable. When I paint I can’t see or feel where my body ends and the paint starts. Each time I get introduced to myself all over again.
“Let’s fill this town with artists.” - Mark Cass, Deputy Chairman Cass Sculpture Foundation, Owner of Cass Art
Selected Exhibitions 2012 Flight, Hay Hill Gallery, London 2010 Hay Hill Gallery, London 2009 Paddington Underground Tube Station 2009 Paint, The Print House Gallery, London 2009 The Hampton Gallery, USA 2009 Presenting the Top 100, Brighton Festival, Brighton 2009 Project Hope, Montreal, Canada 2009 The Seduction of Paint, Rollo Contemporary Art 2008 The Open Door Exhibition, The Royal Overseas League 2008 CSM Fine Art BA Degree Show, Central Saint Martins, London 2008 Gaunt Gallery, Somerset 2007 Oversubscribed, Lorem Ipsum Gallery 2007 Seascapes, Petley Fine Art, London 2007 Nature V Man, The Troubadour Gallery 2007 NUDE, Covent Garden Seven Dials, London Collectors Orlando Bloom (Actor) Clare Francis (British Yachtswoman & Best-selling Novelist) Jim Beach (Manager of Queen) Mark Owen, Gary Barlow, Jason Orange and Howard Donald (Take That) Lord Jonathan Marland (Tory Party Treasure) Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson (Roxy Music) Jonathan Wild (Manager of Take That) Paul Latham (Chairman of LIVE NATION)
Janek Pearce
Untitled Acrylic on board
He moved through the world with calm, casual grace, seeing its simple lines, its beauty and teaching us to see it too.
“The t rue mark of an art i s t i s individuality, that special chord struck which marks a painting as the work of an individual and distinctive artist, and that’s what Scarlett Raven possesses with great skil l and remarkable intensity” - Sally Norris, Series Producer & Director (The Diamond Queen)
“I invest in the future and that’s what Scarlett Raven is!” - David Lenigas (Chai r man of LONRHO)
Image courtesy of Steve Hathaway
To author S.C. Cunningham "Thank you mum for everything, you are beautiful in every way".
