‘I Dreamed I Touched the Land You See’ will take place at The Neon Rooms

Thanet artist Vanessa Raw (@vkraw) brings her first solo show ‘I Dreamed I Touched the Land You See’ to The Neon Rooms in Margate in October.

Vanessa paints phantoms: the things, people, places and the spaces in between that exist in dreams, they are brought to light on her canvas.

“Her intuitive paintings are an expression of the intangible; a physical manifestation of unseen connections between the psyche and the geography within which one resides. Vanessa paints the spaces between the here, now and the deeply-buried subconscious.”

Born and raised in Durham, Vanessa studied fine art at Loughborough, where she fell into triathlon racing. Deciding to pursue her triathlon training, succeeding in a 12 year career representing Great Britain, Vanessa has in the last few years returned to her passion of painting.

Vanessa acknowledges that a training regime which saw her push her body to the limit provided a pure connection between the self and the landscape within which she trained, and this form of meditative, almost psychedelic departure becomes captured within her work.

Still an avid runner, the strong connection between nature, her environment and her work is ever present.

“When I run I experience the external as well as my internal world. Recreating this dual experience on the canvas is important to me,” she says. “The quick energetic painting is like an extension of the experience I have had whilst connecting with my body and mind through exercise - it’s almost otherworldly. I want to capture the experience of letting go of our thoughts like we do when we exercise or sleep, when we let go of our ego self and let those moments of in-between infiltrate our minds.”

“We are asked to give ourselves the freedom to drift into the paintings, rather than observe them as if from the outside - like we do when we dream.

“These are dreams that cannot be casually explained away as the mind is still at work while we sleep. Here, the dreams are projections of our inner selves, those lucid moment in which we sail through places known and unknown, all connected somehow by our own personal string theories.”

The Show will be open 11am-6pm every day 22nd October-4th of November.