Small Boats & Family Matters

The Raft of the Medusa, 1819, by Théodore Géricault on show at the Louvre in Paris shows the bleakest moment, a depiction of the basic human need to survive:

“The figures in the scene are not mythological heroes or brave warriors, but victims of a shipwreck…”

RS – Rebecca Scott    RL – Rebecca Larkin

RL: The harrowing scenes of the famous painting from over 200 years ago mirrors the scenes that we have seen on the news, and social media for a number of years. The similarities are disturbing.

RS: Absolutely. These images have been streaming through and the stories to go alongside what we are seeing are horrific. People fleeing for their lives on these tiny boats – it was reported that five people died in France today trying to cross the water. The disturbing issue is that these stories are getting more and more filtered down, they aren’t being reported on as much now but six months ago, a year ago, the news was daily.

RL: Where do you source your reference material from?

RS: I search online for images captured to go alongside articles, they’re not the scenes I’ve seen in the newspapers I have read but they are there if you look. The images moved me and the more I saw the more I referenced them back to the image painted in The Raft of the Medusa.

RL: How do you go about painting the scene on canvas?

RS: I work square by square and build the image up from there, layering the paint using a ‘wet-on-wet’ technique to apply the oils to the canvas. This is a painting technique in which layers of wet paint are layered together. I begin with a base layer of lemon yellow and work from light to dark. Adding oranges, then reds before moving on to greens, blues, and violets. I think go over with white and lighter colours to create different skin tones. I paint quite fast, and this technique allows me to move quickly. A painting can take as little as a week to finish.

RL: Once you’ve painted these scenes, what made you decide to overlay the emojis?

RS: I think what I’ve always liked to do is interfere with the work, an interruption of the gaze. Many of my paintings have this scribble on and the emoji introduces a much more contemporary language. Adding the emoji jars the image, it is a juxtaposition that makes you question what you’re looking at, and a lot of my painting have always been trying to make the viewer question what they’re looking at. Emojis are a universal language.

RL: True, anyone, anywhere will look at an avocado emoji and know it is an avocado, the same with the butterfly. Like you said it’s a universal language,

RS: Yeah, and I think that the emojis were also a symbol of hope. They are rather trivial and the complete opposite to themes behind them. This was also a way to connect the Migrant paintings with the family portraits, the emojis connected the two different worlds.

RL: And that was your thoughts behind it with the sort of comparison, the juxtaposition of these images where people are fleeing for their lives and your family photos. The fact that in your world you are very safe and secure at home and you’re not in a position where you have to choose to leave that safety.

RS: Absolutely, it is a very secure life. The paintings are showing my empathy and reflection of the images I see, the struggles of others in a situation so different from ours.