January 6, 2012 – March 23, 2012
EPCOR CENTRE Visual Arts and Media Programming presents History and Heritage
EPCOR CENTRE Window Galleries (across from Max Bell Theatre)
I explore the intersection of the personal and social realm with impermanent installations that include large drawings directly on the wall and floor, and small shrine-like interventions. My negotiation of my non-religious personal beliefs, my Irish-Italian Catholic family background and the impact on the Matriarchal figures in my life, have encouraged the consideration of cultural similarities and differences, rejection and acceptance of conventions, and the relationship between individual and universal experiences.
My work often serves as a requiem. Binary relationships are repeatedly embraced in my work, illustrating Black and White, Mother and Widow, Madonna and Whore. Investigating materials intertwined with associations such as lace imagery and religious icons coupled with their substitutes, paper doilies and figurines, I explore their respective implications, historical or cultural connotations, their duality as well as their subversion. My work discusses concepts of impermanence through its own physical temporality.
Emma is currently working towards a Bachelor of Fine Art as a Drawing Major at the Alberta College of Art & Design. Her recent art practice relates to identity and gender politics, using her personal-cultural perspective as a point of departure. Her temporary installations and wall drawings, often to her physical scale, relate to social ritual and the body. Through the re-contextualization, codification and abstraction of culturally loaded symbols such as lace and veils, her material processes often communicate universal notions of mourning and sexuality. Emma had her first solo exhibition in March 2011, Madonna;Whore, in the Marion Nicoll Gallery.