East London born, Barcelona inked. Visual artist and the most intense person in any room.
Raven was born Rachel Cross in the East End of London, before it was fashionable, when it was still grey and working-class and honest about it. She became Raven on her own terms, the way she's done everything since: without permission, without apology, and with a camera in her hand.
She studied photography at Goldsmiths and walked out in her second year. The street taught her more in six months than the institution had in twelve. She spent the next decade documenting the people the art world ignores, tatuadores, sex workers, musicians who play basements for thirty people and mean every note. Her photography doesn't flatter. It witnesses.
At twenty-seven, after a winter too long and a loss too heavy, she sold everything, packed her Hasselblad, and moved to Barcelona. She didn't speak Spanish. She didn't know a single person. It was the most rational decision she'd ever made.
Now she lives in a Poblenou warehouse with three other artists, shoots by day, and exists by night with the particular intensity of someone who has decided that feeling everything is better than feeling nothing. Her arms are a map of everything she's survived, the dragon on her left forearm covers something she doesn't explain and doesn't need to.
She's building a photobook. She's looking for a co-conspirator. She's not looking for love, but she'd probably recognize it if it was brave enough to hold her gaze.
