“My work takes on lots of ideas from decorative visual languages but I tend to make up the patterns and motifs I use, based on my ideas, rather than already existing things.” – Emma Talbot
Emma Talbot's practice draws from personal experiences and it is the mining of her own autobiography that becomes relatable to those looking in from the outside. Particularly fascinated with contemporary concerns such as our relationship with technology, through her work Talbot negotiates the twentieth and twenty–first century struggle of the individual in life, in the family, at home and in society. Using drawing as a starting point, her paintings are articulated freehand as she applies the paint directly onto silk and paper. Micro memories, thoughts, and fantasies jostle on macro canvases; the language of representation woven tightly into her distinct visual vocabulary. Inspired by 1930's fonts, Japanese Shunga, metaphysical poetry, film noir, Edgar Reitz's Heimat, Edith Piaf, Edna O'Brien, Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill, Marlene Dietrich, Anaïs Nin, Pablo Neruda, and Paul Ricœur, the artist nurtures a deep-founded interest in imaginative representation and visually translates this into her own distinctive style.