Emma Forrester
Emma Forrester, was born in Stoke-on-Trent, England, home of the pottery industry, to a family with a strong relationship to ceramics. She later moved to Liverpool to attend Liverpool University, where she graduated with honors in 1993 with a double major in Fine Arts and English Literature.
After graduating, she worked in various theater production companies, such as West End or Royal Opera House, as a set design artist, before realizing she wanted to focus on her own art and her own exhibitions. Today, she lives in London, and works in her studio at Wimbledon Art Studios. Her time working as a set designer and her admiration for the textiles on Matisse’s work, have greatly influenced her expressive style of painting, in which her works have theatrical components full of unique patterns and impressionist applications of colour. Recently, she has been interested in portraying everyday objects, such as tea cups or other home appliances, yet her representation defies our traditional perception of them. Her paintings, most of the time, follow a repetition of patterns in both the objects themselves as well as the background, bringing harmony and balance into her work, while also making them one dimensional planes that categorize her paintings as abstract.
Emma Forrester, has extensively exhibited throughout the UK and internationally through art fairs all the way to Singapore and New York City, however she regularly exhibits with “Carina Haslam Gallery” and with “No Naked Walls Chertsey & Bramley”. In addition, her work as an artist was further recognized when she won the “Dry Red Press award” at the Royal Watercolour Society, Contemporary Watercolour competition” organized by Bankside Gallery. Forrester’s unique work continues to be admired locally and internationally, while she further pursues and develops her artistic career.
Here some words from the artist about her work, “I am drawn to beautiful forms whether they are man- made or natural. My aim is to show my appreciation of the simple beauty of such objects by their sensitive portrayal in my paintings. In my work I'll often draw and paint the forms many times, scratching and scraping through to previous layers to create a broadly descriptive but beautiful image. My aim is not to ‘copy’ the object in paint, but rather to describe and celebrate what I see with mark making skills that have developed into my personal style as an artist”.
