Aged nineteen and already creating pieces that have art critics chattering like there’s no tomorrow, Scarlett Carlos Clarke is the World’s End pirate who can perhaps best be summed-up with the title of one her most renowned sculptures: ‘a stick with boobs on it.’
Daughter of the ingeniously adventurous photographer Bob Carlos Clarke, Scarlett’s wandering eye and art is an efficacious effort for all to behold. First meeting when she was donning a black Cabaret-esque wig, bulging crystal blue eyes and hip-slipping jeans, i-D online knew Miss C.C. was a This is how we do it must-have ingredient! With an infectious imagination, Scarlett’s collaborations with artists and musicians have catapulted her into the world of animation, art direction and magazine creating with the soon-to-launch PIGMEE. That’s not mentioning her burgeoning film career – she’s soon to appear in hotly-tipped Sean McLusky flick Riot on Redchurch Street as Nico, ‘the lipstick lesbian’.
With a flair for hair, Scarlett has recently worked alongside Tim Noble and Sue Webster to create Cult band Bo Ningen’s ‘hair animation’ for the Venice Biennale and she can be found assisting ‘Swampy’ (better known as hair stylist and trend setting colourist Alexandra Brownsell) of BLEACH on her more recent adventures, painting, snipping and transforming mundane manes.
Transport to Scarlett’s house and you will find a toy box full of paraphernalia she has hoarded and used, a half-edited film with an unbeatable soundtrack on her laptop or an experiment for a possible jewellery collection. Scarlett will be strategically placed, legs akimbo, topless drumming in a pool of her own sweat on an electric drum kit (think Chelsea neighbours with sensitive hearing aids) practising for her band, 10 minutes with my Dad.
Scarlett’s creative juices squirted all over This is how we do it with the art direction, themes and props all whispering her stimulating genius. This girl is addictive and so i-D online grabbed a fix on set between her spray-can sabotaging and her tending to Beano the parrot!
In your animations and with your art you use light as an object, what to you is so attractive about light? Light is just another way of creating an image… I’ve always loved neon light signs – the idea you can be going down a dark dingy street in London which would have once been full of brothels and prostitutes, and then seeing a neon red sign glow, it still feels really seedy.
Tell us a bit about your fascination with ‘found objects’? I think if you can see potential in something mundane and you can put it into a different context, you’ve already nailed it. If you have that ambition and vision, something like money becomes irrelevant, because you realise you can make something quite interesting out of not much.
What was the first piece of ‘art’ you remember making? It was a wire woman/man wearing a wool dress, a very dramatic pose and its head resembled a potato.
What qualities do you most admire in a man? Good humour. Good height. Bulging eyes!
What qualities do you most admire in a woman? Ambition. Outspoken.
See the This is how we do it series in all its glory here.
Text: Harriet Verney
Photography: Louie Banks
Art Direction: Scarlett Carlos Clarke
Make-up: Lucy Wearing
Hair: Sami Knight
