ABOUT
Based in West Yorkshire, I am an Artist and Fabricator with a background working as a Workshop Technician in the prop making industry, art galleries and universities. From my past work, I utilise the valuable knowledge and practical skills I have developed and apply it to my practice to create outdoor artworks in public environments. Specialising in hardwearing materials such as wood, resin, fibreglass and metal, I enjoy building installations around community focussed projects, with an enthusiasm for taking ideas and forging them into playful and engaging artworks.
My practice primarily works within the medium of sculpture, painting and drawing. With a keen focus on creating narratives, I use abstract forms and colourful environments to help visualise what it might look like to observe worlds based on micro and macrocosmic aesthetics. Like a personification of my wonder and curiosity that surrounds scientific concepts, I use these forms (called Foramen) in my paintings and as sculpture, to think about how beings observe and process their surroundings in an attempt to make sense of or just wonder about their origins.
I use art to explore these ideas as, just like how art has been used throughout history as an attempt to explain phenomena that can’t be seen, it helps me explore philosophic and scientific principles that are unimaginable.
The way stories are woven in ancient times, before we had science to explain the way nature works, intrigues me greatly. Art has been used in separate cultures over thousands of year to depict their surroundings. I wonder whether there is something intrinsic in making art that is used to develop a sense of their intuitions and instincts, which by turning the ideas into a physical form, helps to understand, recognise and develop your concept of it.
Having Synesthesia, I anthropomorphise most things that don’t already have a personality. Be it numbers, days of the week, plants or rocks, it is a natural reaction for them to have a character and backstory. Perhaps as a way for my mind to make sense of its surroundings, it reminds me of the way ancient cultures would anthropomorphise natural phenomena, such as the weather or the changing of constellations through the year. As an attempt to understand their environment, some cultures attributed those happenings into deities or spirits which controlled them.
COMMISSIONS & AWARDS
August 2023: Artwork for Wakefield Exchange Hoarding – Wakefield Exchange
July-August 2023: Boston Way Community Centre Larder Design & Build – LeftCoast, Blackpool
March – June 2023: Together, Under The Sun with Rotherham Community & Workshops – Rotherham Museums, Keppel’s Column
May 2023: Sonic Whispers – Bibliobeats, Barnsley Libraries Music Festival
November 2022: Connections, Lightwaves & GLOW, Salford Quays & RHS Bridgewater
September 2022: Sculpture Casting Workshops (Artist in Residence) – KHL Community Workshop, Corby
August 2022, SIRENS – Freedom Festival, Hull
July 2022, Allied Waters – High Street Heritage Jubilee Weekend, Sowerby Bridge
July 2016: Kunsthuis Sculpture Prize
EXPERIENCE & WORKSHOP FACILITATION
March – June 2023: Keppel’s Column with Rotherham Museums – Art Works, The Chislett Centre & St Bede’s Catholic Primary School
2023: Sonic Whispers – Bibliobeats, Barnsley Libraries Music Festival – Workshop Facilitator
2023: KHL Community Workshop – Basic Woodwork/Workshop Machinery Inductions – Workshop Facilitator
2023: Fermynwoods Contemporary Arts (Artist in Residence) – Exploring Synesthesia/Jesmonite Casting/Woodwork Projects – Workshop Facilitator
2022: KHL Community Workshops – Sculpture Building and Casting – Workshop Facilitator
2022: Make It Happen, Outdoor Arts Summer School led by Creative Scene and Periplum
2015: Aesthetica Magazine – Art Prize Intern
Exhibitions
November 2022, Connections, Lightwaves & GLOW, Salford Quays & RHS Bridgewater (FESTIVAL)
September 2022, Open Mind, Open Gallery, Halifax (GROUP)
August 2022, SIRENS, Freedom Festival, Hull (FESTIVAL)
August 2022, ART SHOW LEEDS @ Cole’s Gallery, Leeds Corn Exchange (GROUP)
August 2022, ART SHOW LEEDS Garden Party, Marveland, Leeds (GROUP)
August 2022, The Specimen Cabinet, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield (GROUP)
August 2022, D31 Art Prize, D31 Art Gallery (Online Exhibition) (GROUP)
July 2022, The Tiny Issue, Haus A Rest (Online Zine) (GROUP)
July 2022, Allied Waters, High Street Heritage Jubilee Weekend, Sowerby Bridge (FESTIVAL)
September 2016, Elsewhere, somewhere, The Old Fire Station, York (GROUP)
September – October 2016, The Balance in Abstraction, Kunsthuis Gallery, Crayke (GROUP)
May 2016, See:Saw, Phoenix Building, York St. John University (GROUP)
December 2015, Relish, School House Gallery, York (GROUP)
April 2015, Intrepid, The Fleting Arms, York (GROUP)
December 2014, From A Blank Space, York St. John University, York (GROUP)
EMPLOYMENT
Current: Artist & Freelance Technician
October 2020 – May 2022: Norse Sky – Core Technician
December 2019: The Royal Institution – Christmas Lectures Demonstration Technician
January 2019 – October 2020: Sheffield Hallam University – Assistant Technician
January 2018 – December 2019: Yorkshire Sculpture Park – Sculpture/Exhibition Technician
March 2015 – January 2018: Yorkshire Sculpture Park – Visitor Experience Team Member
EDUCATION
2016: First Class BA (Hons), Fine Art – York St Johns University
2015: Level 1 BTEC, Construction and Joinery – Leeds College of Building
2013: Foundation Diploma, Art & Design (Distinction) – Kirklees College of Art
Emma Denby 