Lauren White

by Jen McNeely

From the day I met Lauren White, aka Raymi-the-minx, I’ve admired her tenacity, honesty, wild spirit and gritty humour.

Whether striking a pose in a bathroom, opening up her fears and depressing thoughts for the public to scrutinize, taking photos of itsy bitsy charms she loves, strutting into a bar at 3 am with a mini skirt, knee socks and big fluffy hat or writing a book – White is an artist from her pinky finger to the clothes in her laundry basket. Most know her as the gutless girl who storms the net with notes, posts and photos most would dare not to do or say, but now she’s showing the public a new thing – her painting.

Her imagination flows much further than the confines of her apartment and creates another world where doing the dishes, eating a burger or feeling ‘blah’ become lively adventures in themselves. As she explains, “…you have to have a big imagination about yourself which is why my blog is full of demented baloney.” It is this baloney that myself and bored out of their fucking mind office drones cling to as a way to save them from slicing their wrists in the paper shredder. Beyond the fantasy outlet that White provides, there is an endearing, psychologically comforting aspect in the fact that we can get a glimpse into another persons life who struggles with their weight,anti-depressants, with getting up in the morning – just like the rest of us.

Like her writing, her painting examines the sarcasm, underbelly and dirty corners of culture. She strips celebrities of their gloss and glamour and smacks them up on the canvas for what she really sees in them.
Her paintings of bone thin Nicole Ritchie, hunched and half naked Lindsay Lohan and disastrous Courtney Love make me laugh. They accurately capture the nonsense which is the current state of our pop culture, or as White accurately describes, “noxious, sickitating and addictive”.

Like Lohan and Ritchie, White has also grown up in the public eye. Obviously not the kind that chases her around with cameras, but she has put herself out there for all to see since she was seventeen – way before any one was blogging and describes that time as being ‘lonely out there on the web’. Seven years later, she has seen the Toronto blog scene grow from a small group to a gigantic business, and although there are tens of thousands of Toronto blogs out there – Raymi’s still charges ahead as one of the most honest and daring of them all.
So yeah…go check out her art at Crooked Star and if you haven’t already – get addicted to one of Toronto’s most talented young creative forces:

http://www.raymitheminx.com
Crooked Star
202 Ossington
Jan 8 – end of month