The Cheese & Grain Artist of the Month for February is Emma Rose.
Emma is an artist/ colourist based near Bath specialising in contemporary, semi-abstract painting with an emphasis on colour and texture. Her style is distinctive, original yet diverse. Using Indian inks and acrylics she produces vibrant and arresting work.
Landscape, sky, sea, nature and memory are the inspirational core reflecting often her interest in the Japanese asthetic of Wabi-Sabi – the process and beauty of ageing which creates irregularity and imperfection. She produces original artwork, limited edition Giclée framed prints, and canvas-prints.
Emma grew up between the West Country and London, loving equally the countryside, the sea and the city. Her colourful family instilled a love of art, theatre, literature, photography, dance, nature, gardening and a wander-lust.
After being educated at Sherborne in Dorset, she settled in London. A vibrant London career followed – in theatre (Maybox Theatres) and film (Hobo Films, Mayfair Entertainment, Zooom Photographic and Film & General Productions) alongside dancing/choreography (Flos and Theatre In Trust). She also trained in tap, modern, jazz and choreography at the Dance Centre, Covent Garden.
During these years she also studied painting, photography and sculpture in Chelsea through ILEA. In tandem there has also been a lifetime of artistic tuition with her step-father, Godfrey Cake FRSA the painter, photographer and sculptor. After moving to Somerset she settled in a beautiful village just outside Bath in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – the country idyll of Wellow, old home of the Brotherhood of Ruralists, pop-art king Peter Blake and sculptor Peter Watts. In Bath she studied abstract theory which fuelled her creative passion to open her Art Studio in Wellow and Art Gallery in Bath.
From an early age, Emma travelled extensively – these vivid experiences often revealed in her work, from memory and imagination. Combined with her keen interest in the processes of growth in nature and landscape evolution – helps her paint from what she calls from her ‘interal reservoir of remembered senses’.
With an obsession for colour, form, texture and patina, her eye finds beauty in the most unlikely places which makes her work atmospheric and evocative. She is a colourist using mixed media – acrylics, enamel, spray, gold, sand, oil, India ink and deep iridescence float on canvas.
In tandem, the natural world and a love of books has led her to a distilling of her exuberant style into literary land and seascapes. Her atmospheric canvases pulsate with exotic colours, textures and dynamic brushwork and mark making.
Small and large scale work, and commissions are eminently covetable, and for the time being at least, affordable for the discerning middle-income collector.
She now regularly exhibits in Bath, the West Country and London. Emma’s stunning exhibition will be at the Cheese & Grain in Frome throughout February.
