Punchy Designs and Political Art with Carla Scotto
Carla Scotto is an illustrator, designer and 2D animator who creates unapologetically bold art.
Hailing from an Italian background, Carla explains that art runs in the family. “There is a string of artists from my family, a lot of them are based in Italy,” she says. “When I went to visit them as a kid, they encouraged me to draw a lot and convinced my parents to enrol me in art classes”. Carla describes her gratitude at the fact that she had access to art classes early in life; “I was incredibly privileged to take oil painting lessons in Elsternwick, instructed by Italian artist Paul Bottaro”.
Carla’s work is “a hybrid of design and art”, and much of it is created digitally. Carla explains that she was interested in streamlining the design and art process as “[I] don’t really have the patience to spend months on a piece, which is why so much of my work became digital”.
Though Carla’s work is undoubtedly contemporary, she says that her work is still very much influenced by traditional art. “I loved studying art history in Florence and a lot of those classical pieces find their way into the paintings I sometimes do, but always with a more modern or more ‘feminine’ twist”. Carla uses both digital and traditional mediums to create her work; “for digital pieces I usually sketch out a few concepts on paper or on my iPad. When I paint I tend to keep to acrylic on canvas, timber, or paper.”
Carla’s art often has a political message; her Instagram highlights colourful visual art adorned with blunt messaging such as “eat the rich” and “slap your local coloniser”. While Carla admits that “it wasn’t really my intention to do a lot of the pieces I would end up creating”, she found that donating her art to organisations that campaign for social and climate justice gave her a strong sense of purpose “whilst also creating revenue for organisations and communities that need them”.
One such donation of art was Carla’s now iconic ‘Always Was Always Will Be’ design; there is no doubt you have seen this design around, worn on shirts or on stickers as a part of Clothing The Gaps’ merch. For Carla, this was the proudest moment of her artistic career; when speaking of this design, she says “it began to forge a life of its own and no longer really [feels] like my own artwork because it’s kind of everywhere? Still baffles me but that piece will be impossible to top”. Read more about the collab here.
Carla in a Clothing The Gaps tee adorned with her design. Image via Locker Room Talk.
While Carla is clearly a visible advocate for issues she believes in, she adds that being vocal isn’t for everyone, and allyship comes in many different forms. Carla tells us that she is “constantly reminding myself to not be the centre of whatever I’m advocating for.”
We ask Carla about things going on in the world currently that makes her angry; her responses come fast and quick. “Top soil erosion, modern day colonisation, the alt-right weaponizing everything under the sun to further their own agenda, how unliveable parts of the earth are already, the constant prioritisation of profit despite our fragile ecosystems being on the brink of collapse, and so much more!”
When speaking of books that have had a big impact on Carla, she states that “Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction” by Chris D. Thomas was surprisingly comforting to read; “it touches on all the animals that thrive in a warming world, a really interesting take on our current situation.”
Carla’s ‘to read’ list includes a lot of climate-related books including “Sunlight and Seaweed: An Argument for How to Feed, Power and Clean Up the World” by Tim Flannery and “Fire Flood Plague” by Sophie Cunningham.
Keep up-to-date with Carla’s work via her link tree and by following her on Instagram.
