A BRAVE NEW ART WORLD HOW SCARLETT RAVEN MADE SENSE OF THE WORLD THROUGH PAINTING. AND THEN REINVIGORATED IT WITH TECHNOLOGY. BY JOHN-PAUL PRYOR
“My paintings evolve alongside me: recorded journeys of my feelings, experiences, and ideas. There wasn’t this raw proximity before augmented reality -- now you can engage on a deeper level. Now you can see the unknown.” Her interest in The Danger Tree story lies in how this monolithic tragedy plays into our understanding of the human condition and how its memory resolutely defines our perception of contemporaneity. While providing a penetrating exploration of an historical moment, The Danger Tree exhibiton also feels like a forensic examination of the artist herself. The incorporation of personal ephemera into the canvas provides a psychological unveiling of the artist. It is the intensely physical mark making indicative of a process via which a deliverance of identity is achieved. “All the layers of who we are and who I am are in here,” says Raven. “My darkest secrets, my happiest thoughts. My art needs to move, to shift feelings. It’s like a swan plucking at its feathers. Without it I have no idea who I am.” The subsequent augmentation of this process displays the passion of a raw empathetic soul; one reaching deep into the tragedies of the past in order to seek out meaning in a world where the soil is perpetually, and lamentably, enriched with the blood of those who have fallen. John-Paul Pryor is Senior Editor of Flaunt Magazine and Contributing Arts Editor to AnOther Magazine.
As a young girl, Scarlett Raven’s dyslexia was so profound she could only communicate using art. She deciphered the real world by reading between the lines. Through painting, she rebuilt the world in a way she understood. Imaginary conversations with Frida Kahlo also helped. The true beauty and profundity of art is as much about what is hidden, or imagined, as it is directly portrayed or communicated. In nature it is the distant sound of the unseen humming bird, as much as the deep green of the grass beneath one’s feet, that goes to complete the personal experience of any garden. Nature is important to Scarlett Raven, and it is precisely these ambiguous spaces between the lines of experience -- and the intangible elements at the heart of any form of expression -- that she seeks to explore in her latest exhibition, The Danger Tree. She takes as its source material the haunting words of some of The Great War’s poetic voices and a tragic rendezvous point in one of the bloodiest gardens in human history. Scarlett is an action painter, using hands rather than a brush. To watch her paint is like watching a conductor: sweeping gestures, arms
deep in the momentum of orchestrating paint and whatever else comes to hand. The sculptural nuances of her paintings nod towards Anselm Kiefer. The layers of medium -- both real and augmented -- float somewhere between impressionism and expressionism, and Scarlett’s animated style of delivery and free-form manipulation of paint call to mind the canvas-hovering antics of Jackson Pollock. Scarlett is the first Augmented Reality fine artist, deconstructing the process of painting via the mediated realities of modern technology. Using a digital interface, she takes the viewer on a journey mapping the various layers and stages via which a blank canvas becomes a repository for unfettered emotional impulses. It’s a fascinating process that throws into sharp relief that great question of whether a work of art is ever truly finished. Her poignant undertaking pits the past against the present, reframing history and classic painting techniques through the increasingly magical lens of 21st century technology. “The chaos of the layers within the painting makes it a living thing,” explains Raven.
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