
Rayvenn Shaleigha D'Clark
(Digital) Sculptor, Writer-Researcher & Curator
Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark is a UK based, self-taught, digital sculptor, writer, researcher and curator living in Central London. She was born in London in 1995 and studied at Chelsea College of Arts, where she gained an MA in Fine Art in 2018.
Following the affirmation of media, Rayvenn’s practice explores the digital hybridity of sculpture. She explores the nuances of identity that pivot between hyper-visibility and invisibility, offering (re-)imagined collective perspective. Her work chronicles the elevated reframing of black anatomy. She chronicles the reframing of black anatomy in order to open up a dialogue about the irregular and marginalised position of the black artist – turning ‘the system’ back on itself, she uses the power, influence and materials of the industry to present an alternative narrative history and perspective. She explores ‘the nuances of identity that pivot between hyper-visibility and invisibility, offering a perspective of the SOUL as a crossbreed of aesthetic references. She asks: ‘When will the black body truly escape [from] the guise of the white imagination?’
Such ideological positioning shifts the normative function of figurative practices within this mode of self-referential questioning, which engenders a self-sustaining (non-) fiction rooted in authenticity and criticality that allows audiences to break free from reference once and for all in a new form of hybrid realism.
Selected
artworks


Untitled, 2017 (male) , 2017
Face, silicone mould, silicone pigment, sleek make up 140 x 190 x 90 mm
My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink And I Don’t Love Jesus , 2017
Silicone, monster clay, silicone pigment, human hair, sleek makeup, acrylic, plastic, nail varnish 80 x 230 x 200mm

Projects

BODY + SOUL install at Canary Wharf
Running from August 2019 to October 2019, BODY + SOUL was an exhibition exploring materials, scale and consciousness in the representation of the human form by artists Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark, Aron Demetz, Carole A Feuerman, Sean Henry, Jonty Hurwitz, Warren King, Tom Price and Recycle Group.

BLACK + WHITE = GREY – Solo Show, Picnic Gallery (Pechham)
Picnic Gallery presented Black + White = Grey, an installation of 3D lenticular prints and text by Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark, exploring the shifting viewpoints of race online. When it comes to how the lives of black people are portrayed online, these fictions end up spreading at rapid pace through the online world, having real life effects on the people they depict. Rayvenn Shaleigha D’Clark’s work seeks to breaks down these biased and un-thoughtful visualisations to reveal the fractured nature of ‘truth’ in the webspace.