Vanessa Raw: This is How the Light Gets In

The Rubell Museum Miami presents the first US and first institutional exhibition of British artist Raw, born in 1984 in Hexham and based in Margate. In these newly commissioned large-scale paintings, Raw’s layered brushwork and expressive colour conjure a dream-like, all-female world: an earthly paradise in which nature is sentient, benevolent and intimately connected to female desire.

A former triathlete, Raw brings a disciplined awareness of physicality to her painting. Her figures appear tranquil and self-possessed, yet imbued with agency. They move in harmony with one another and with a landscape that is lush, soft and radiant with colour. Through this vivid environment, Raw imagines a space of companionship, pleasure and embodied freedom—a vision of paradise found.