issue one. october 2009.
profile
The artist rosie emerson tells station what it’s all about.
I grew up in a small village in Dorset. My dad was a furniture restorer, so the house is full of pictures and ornate mostly broken pieces of old treasure. This has most probably influenced my recent collection of large scale ink drawings, Legs and Drawers. My grandmother is also an artist, and her painting is getting more abstract and interesting the older she gets. We have a close bond and I love being able to share my passion with her and to listen to her stories of when she was at the Slade art school in the 1940s. Coming from a creative background has no doubt fuelled my inherent interest in the visual arts, and made me want to surround myself with creative energy from other people. I first starting experimenting with collage at university: they had a fantastic image library, mostly ‘70s advertising all clearly labelled and categorized in endless filing cabinets, which I’d spend hours going through. My process of working involves a lot of image hunting and research, followed by a frenzied period in the studio - always at night when the hours feel like bonus time. I try to leave behind all theory, or ideas about my work and let it seep out unconsciously. I’ve always been seduced by advertising imagery, fashion photography especially. My work tends to remove the model from her advertising context and I treat her more like wildlife photography. Anthropomorphizing the models into something a much more visceral and feral and seeing how they behave as images. At the moment I’m working on a commission for a cruise ship, using film icons from Louise Brooks to Rita Hayworth. The brief was fantastically loose and I’ve been working digitally as well as with collage and paint with the images, as well as using 3D elements in the work. I’m being surprised by the characters which are appearing: Gina Lollabrigida has developed into a golden antlered Boudicca type character.
S to c k i s t s o f G i a , A r r o g a n t c at s , U n i q u e c o l l e c t i o n s , M i s f i t s , P e o p l e T r e e , Fu l l c i r c l e g a l l e ry, M e l i ss a p l us o t h e r c h o i c e b o u t i q u e l a b e l s .
I’ve recently taken part in my first Vyner Street exhibition at the Five Hundred Dollar gallery. Prints will be going on sale at Shoreditch based gallery Hang Up this month too. As to upcoming plans, costume designer Petra Storrs and I are developing sculptural costumes to be worn by models, and will be directing our own fashion shoot, which is a new focus for me and, in a way, takes my work back to a subversive circle. www.rosieemerson.co.uk. 29
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