A multidisciplinary printmaker, working almost exclusively on representing the female form, ROSIE EMERSON’s work is unapologetically feminine. She tells Niki Browes about how her life has been absorbed by art from the start
As exquisitely demonstrated in the Tate Modern’s current exhibition Capturing the Moment (on until 28 January 2024 and as featured in the Summer issue of Artists & Illustrators) world-renowned artists including Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Jackson Pollock have, for years, been blurring the lines between painting and photography.
London-based visual artist Rosie Emerson takes a similar approach. She works with photography, which is then edited and, upon completion, she decides what size and shape the canvas will be. Working with three different print mediums – currently screen-print, cyanotype and photopolymer etchings – each one requires a different approach and, along with photography, includes print and painting.
Rosie’s grandmother was an artist who trained at the Slade School of Art, pre and post second world war. Rosie says knowing her grandmother was a successful painter – and from watching her work, stage exhibitions and seeing how her art developed throughout her life – made it feel to Rosie that art as a profession was a real thing you could do, and had a huge impact.
Her father is also a cabinet maker and “a magpie,” and Rosie sees herself in him through her practice. Her sister is an artist, too, whilst mum was a Spanish teacher who also writes poetry. Art and creativity – it’s a family affair.
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I grew up in Dorset in a house that backed onto a field.
This was my playground, where I would play make-believe and lose myself in storytelling; all essential components of my childhood. I feel fortunate that, through my art, these are all things I still get to indulge in. My father had his workshop in the garden. I would love finding the secret drawers in expensive roll-top desks he was restoring whilst admiring the beautiful mother of pearl and brass inlays he would repair. Creativity was always encouraged at home and I was constantly drawing and making scrapbooks. I loved tidying my mum’s sewing box and would play with her box of buttons. I soon began collecting things. Today, for instance, I have an extensive collection of sugar lumps!
I’m dyslexic which made reading and writing a challenge, but I think of it now as my superpower.
I’m a visual thinker; it’s my first language. I was at my happiest in the art room at school and went on to do an Art Foundati
