Don’t Cry: Vanessa Raw’s ‘On Earth We Weren’t Meant to Stay’ at the Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate

It was my first time in Margate, and for a Sunday, it was bare. I’d been given a lot of pretext for the area - the multiple articles written about its artistic resurgence, the proximity to a Hospital my mother used to work at, and it’s history as a Seaside Town (the kind of history you have to learn about for your GCSEs). I followed the Carl Freedman Gallery a long time ago - from a love of Pedro Pascal, I found TalkArt, and through TalkArt I found Robert Diament, and through Rob I found the Gallery, which seemed to exhibit exiting new artists one after another, and be precisely where I wanted to be. I’d awaited my pigrimage patiently, but when Vanessa Raw’s Exhibition was advertised, I knew it was now or never.

Once I had a summer, after all the major work was done, the atmosphere in England was a little politically rocky, and I wasn’t sure how safe it would be to hop on a train during the turmoil. Finally, it was clear that I had one weekend to go, or i’d miss the exhibit entirely, what with my travels to Toronto. So on the 1st September, I hopped on a train from St. Pancras and saw all of the countryside on my way out. That was almost it's own art exhibit.

I hadn’t understood where the title for the exhibit came from until I was handed a programme and realised the title, and some of the names of the paintings, were referencing Whitney Houston’s ‘My Love is Your Love’, which I guess would have been a too on-the-nose title - and wouldn’t have quite captured the full scope of the work. Vanessa explores the subconcious female autonomy through a very soft, dreamy sensibility - full of symbolism and considered posing. It wasn’t just sexual, it had a very secret garden atmosphere about it, as if uninviting some eyes and inviting others. The figures not engaged in touch or play were almost (almost) more fascinating - their faces more detailed, their positioning more vulnerable almost.

‘On Earth We Weren’t Meant To Stay’ therefore has multiple meanings - to drift into dreams, the subconcious, another consiousness; perhaps to immortalise, to frame and freeze during motion, is a way of leaving Earth, leaving the grounded; and of course, the sensual can take you out of your head, out of this world, up into space, even (if you’re doing it right).

I was drawn to two figures - a young girl, and a calm baby cow. I think that’s where I saw myself in the work. I was blessed to have witnessed it on that lazy sunny Sunday mid-morning, and hope to have many a future visit to Margate to map the scene out even more.