Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn studio, 2021
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Emily Church’s work, both visual and written, pulls from her quotidian existence as a mother, her ongoing grappling with the natural world, and the specific language of painting. Her paintings transform simple landscape events such as reflections on bodies of water, a sunset, a moonrise, a storm, into iconic mystical space. They reference history, the skies of Constable and Turner, the land of O’Keeffe and Hartley, yet they persist as contemporary in form and intensity of color. Over the past five years, the rainbow as an event after a storm, as a halo around the full moon, and as the phenomena of sun dog that passes through cirrus clouds, has become a significant recurring symbol. It feels like either a beacon of hope or a harbinger of things to come. These paintings bear witness to the passing seasons, ephemeral light, the weather as it mercilessly engulfs, the rainbow as it flashes briefly across the sky, begging to be noticed and gone in an instant.
Emily Church is an interdisciplinary artist working within the mediums of painting, drawing, bookmaking and poetry. Church grew up in Louisville, Kentucky where the experience of nature coupled with attending an urban arts high school influenced her artistic process, as she draws on both the energy of city life and the intensity and wonders of the natural world. She attended Washington University in St. Louis, earning a BFA in sculpture with a special focus in print and paper making. Since 2008, Church has maintained a studio in the Greenwood Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. She received a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting from the New York Studio School in 2012. Church has attended artist residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France, the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, and Yaddo artist colony in Saratoga Springs, NY. Church’s paintings and handmade artist books can be found in the collections of The John McEnroe Library at the New York Studio School, The Hyatt Regency of Louisville, KY, the University of Louisville Rare Book Collection, Ekstrom Library, Washington University in St. Louis Rare Book Library, and the Sam Fox School of Art collection, among numerous other private and corporate collections. She lives with her husband and two children in Brooklyn, NY.
Emily Church is an interdisciplinary artist working within the mediums of painting, drawing, bookmaking and poetry. Church grew up in Louisville, Kentucky where the experience of nature coupled with attending an urban arts high school influenced her artistic process, as she draws on both the energy of city life and the intensity and wonders of the natural world. She attended Washington University in St. Louis, earning a BFA in sculpture with a special focus in print and paper making. Since 2008, Church has maintained a studio in the Greenwood Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. She received a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting from the New York Studio School in 2012. Church has attended artist residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, France, the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, and Yaddo artist colony in Saratoga Springs, NY. Church’s paintings and handmade artist books can be found in the collections of The John McEnroe Library at the New York Studio School, The Hyatt Regency of Louisville, KY, the University of Louisville Rare Book Collection, Ekstrom Library, Washington University in St. Louis Rare Book Library, and the Sam Fox School of Art collection, among numerous other private and corporate collections. She lives with her husband and two children in Brooklyn, NY.