What do you do? ‘sculptural paintings’, ‘soft sculpture,’ photography and process films – open to all avenues for creativity
Your style in 3 words?
inventive, embodied and ‘in process’
What is your weakness?
Distraction
What is your strength?
Not minding mistakes
What makes you different?
My practice invites an interplay of so many mediums./ Making ‘the process’ that the body undergoes when making as important as the final artwork./ Open to learning from my art – it showing me how the world assembles./ Honouring traditional, timely and very human ways of making – that require ‘a lot of body.’/ I address the how of change – materially and psychologically (interwoven)
Your next show: It’s very, very soon! The Crate Gallery in 3 Dunworth Mews, London, W11, is presenting “Camilla Emson: Gateways” from the 9th to the 12th of November 2011.
Tell us something about “Gateways”?
My work is about the very fact of having a body alongside the impossibility of ‘one-ness.’ I am interested in our own internal alchemic potential: the transformative potential of the substances of our bodies. I draw on philosophical thinkers, such as Hillman, Irigaray and Merleau-Ponty to enrich my observations into the how of phenomena. I am trying to acquire a ‘taste for salt and blood,’ which according to Hillman is the seat of meaningful experience. The salt of the body is what amplifies soulfulness. I have tried to monumentalise simplicity by photographing tear ducts using macro-lenses, adjusting scales and finally edifying sacred spaces. In ‘Gateways,’ I juxtapose this series with environmental gateways of my surroundings that contain a concealing yet exposing power. I aim to locate myself, as artist, and the viewer in their bodies to refute a tendency to escape our own mortality and a possibility of soulfulness!
Giada D. met Camilla for a little conversation about her art!
info@camillaemson.com – www.camillaemson.com
© Camilla Emson. Courtesy of the artist.
By Cosima Bucarelli
