Painted Books
Four Pages, Coming back together, 2025, gouache and watercolour on watercolour paper, 61 x 76.5 cms. Balancing on the edge, my feet pushing down against his ankles, feeling the thigh and a kiss that plants my head against the pillow.
Four pages, Crouch, 2025, 73 x 56 cms. It was a raw time, the kind that blocks out all the light, rips you half and makes you stand up again. All the things you ever did, colours mixed, dancing in the kitchen and fried eggs for breakfast, gone.
Four pages, Nana rearranged, 2026, 56.5 x 76 cms
Swimmers on top
2023
Gouache and watercolour on watercolour paper
Four pages, 76 x 61 cms each
— Some works allow me to share a condensed view of how a feeling looks. Others tell a story of how these feelings push and pull their way to the surface. “Swimmers on top” bring both versions together for a moment.
Tinted greys, after Rodin
2024
Gouache on watercolour paper
Six pages, 29.5 x 21 cms each
Book of Love
2016-2017
14 metre
Gouache on paper, paintings and monoprints
Five pages, oil paintings on wood panel
Installation Images: Flare, MA Exhibition Ruskin Gallery, Cambridge School of Art, 2017; Artist in Residence opening the book with students 2018.
— I found making the ‘Book of Love’ to be pivotal in instigating format and installation changes, making me reconsider the way I want my paintings to be seen. Using the book as a container to house private and personal paintings and allowing them to be viewed through unfolding, forced me to expose the fragility of my personal work and to trust the viewer to care for the life, my life, that was depicted on its pages. This created a new relationship between the viewer and myself.
— Emma Copley