My painting practice explores the boundaries between figuration and abstraction and how this border can be perforated or disturbed through geometric and visual cues. In a context where the landscapes we see around us are ever shifting and we are adapting every day to make sense of our contemporary world, the paradoxical works I make reflect how that landscape can become distorted. My practice exploits this distortion and relies on colour to create an ambiguous pictorial space, notions of landscape are hinted at in what might at first glance appear to be abstract works. I aim for the selected colours to on the one hand to create a mood that shifts between utopian and dystopian ideas. Whilst on the other, by layering and creating texture, I aim to create apparent depth and perspective within each work. Line, gesture and brush-strokes all communicate this materiality and hint at the process of making, referring back to the maker. It is important to the work that painting becomes alive and through the varied gestures, creating a conversation between the eye and body of the maker. The key focal points within the work seek to guide the viewer’s eye, whilst not allowing the painting to be read in a purely representational way. Each painting must be discovered through the process of slow looking and discovering what the eye can unveil. The work also offers other conversations between the different works: how the paintings can relate to one another and how they flow from one composition to the next through lines that run off the canvas, in an effort to imply that the works might extend beyond the edges of the paintings.
Instagram: @emilypooleart
Website: https://emilypooleartist.weebly.com/
Image Captions:
1. Emily Poole. A Series of Ambiguous Things. Acrylic on board. 20x20cm, 2020.
2. Emily Poole. Broken Melodies. Acrylic and oil pastel on board, 50x50cm
3. Emily Poole. Scheele’s Greenland. Acrylic on board. 25x25cm, 2020.
4. Emily Poole. Can You See The Earth Changing, Acrylic and oil pastel on board, 120x120cm
