Applying oils with a palette knife, Emily is obsessed by the way paint seems to ‘stand in’ for its subject matter; transmuting into crashing waves, or the dripping exuberance of flower petals. The impasto application gives her work a sculptural presence; resulting in emboldened images which are also painterly objects.
She is drawn to strong forms in nature, from the triffid-like structure of sunflowers to the mountainous landscape of Wales or the crashing seascapes of the Cornish coast. She always works in front of her subject, as there is a raw authenticity gained from this direct proximity; the energy from it becomes embedded in the paint.
Originally from Portsmouth, Emily received a First Class BA in Fine Art at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, an institution infused with a love for Welsh landscape painting and particularly the work of Kyffin Williams, who has been a huge influence on her practice.
In 2021 she was shortlisted for the Jackson’s Painting Prize and was chosen by Maggi Hambling as her winning artist at the plein air painting event ‘Paint Out Norfolk’. She has partaken in painting residencies in both Mid and North Wales; these intense periods of concentration allowing her to develop her working methods amongst the inspiration of Wales’s dramatic landscape.
In 2023 she put on a solo show of recent plein air work in the Lightbox, Woking, followed by a joint show in 2024 at Tregony Contemporary in Cornwall, based around travels on the South West Coastal path. In 2024/25 she won the inaugural public art competition: ‘The Windbreaks’, organised by Portsmouth City Council and had large scale reproductions of her work installed on the seafront of her hometown in Portsmouth.
