Steve Rawlings Biography
Steve Rawlings is a contemporary collage & mixed media artist living and working in the south-west of England in the city of Bath. His work is heavily inspired by the rich tradition of Pop Art and photography, and it is these two artistic genres which form the foundations of his work.
Steve graduated from the Kent Institute of Art & Design with a first Class Honours Degree in Communication Media before relocating to the East end of London. He began his career working as a graphic artist & illustrator across the diverse worlds of advertising, publishing and design. His early commissions were rooted in the mixed media, cut and paste traditions of collage. Integrating his own analogue film photography with layer upon layer of expressive paint textures and found printed ephemera. He developed a unique and intuitive style which has been in demand from global clients such as Conde Nast, The Royal Opera House, Red Bull, Volkswagen and Lucas Films.
A constantly evolving process, embracing new technologies which are fused with traditional techniques has led Steve to develop his work in the truest sense of the Pop art language. Blending hand rendered texture and pattern with found printed material has resulted in Steve’s own unique vision and exploration of the pop art tradition. Layers of material are painstakingly built one on top of the other, producing new expressions and graphic narratives with its own distinctive beauty.
Steve’s work draws heavily on the worlds of music, film and literature, and are inspired by artistic heroes such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Peter Blake. His design education constantly informs the compositional decision making within the work, honing and balancing the smallest of details and elements but also allowing and celebrating the organic element of mistake and chance. The work can often be inspired by the smallest of things , a lyric from a song, a line from a book , a fleeting glimpse of an advertisement … the catalyst for creating. Steve vividly remembers pouring over album sleeves in record stores during his childhood, devouring the incredible visuals produced on the printed sleeve and so it’s no surprise that reincarnations of these are a recurring element to the works. From the Warhol driven Stones classics of the 70’s to the iconic and surrealistic ‘Hipgnosis’ design wonders, Steve seeks to celebrate these creators which have had such an influence on his life. Film is also an ever present element , inspired and influenced by the likes of Hitchcock and David Lynch - the striking and surrealist visuals are constant reference points. His large collection of film magazines and ephemera often form the bedrock to a piece, the base from which to build new narratives - Hollywood, the movies and it’s stars take on new roles.
There is both a figurative and abstract beauty to the work, a gaudy pop art brash reality and also an underlying world of imagination. The graphic elements are the literal signposts of the piece with the hidden narratives lying just under the surface, within the spaces and layers … Multi-layered in it’s physicality and also in it’s meaning. Steve’s work simultaneously seeks to reflect our everyday realities with the landscape of inner emotion.