Emma Coyle Artist Statement

I have always produced strong imagery working from a Fine Art background. For my figurative work I am constantly collecting images from print magazines, whether I am working on an on-going series of paintings or not. Every few year I carefully select and group images together to start working on a series of drawings. I work with groups of drawings for months at a time to manipulate the image, and then continue through to painting.

Mixing colours of paint is very important to the progress of each art work. I mix my paints in tubs which I have used for many years, these contain left over paint from one art work to the next. As I work on each image I minimise details and line. I am very interested in minimalism, abstraction, strength from line work and composition. Although my paintings are more commonly compared to Pop Art because of my use of a black ‘comic book’ line, it is in fact a style inspired by the drawings of Picasso and Matisse, whose use of strong line work firstly captured my attention. My use of strong colours does however comes from my interests in New York Pop Art from the 1950’s and from my interest in coloured glass.

From my experiences from living in Dublin, a brief stay in New York City and now being based in London, it has given me the opportunity to find out what mediums and themes that I am most passionate about. I have found that using acrylic {which is quick drying} on board and canvas allows me to achieve the right colour pallet. I use large size boards and canvas to embrace the strong colours and line throughout my work.  In one of my most recent series ‘Untitled’ I found that the flatness of the board added to the sharpness of the imagery, a light wash of varnish then covered the painting to further enhance the image.

In the past I have created series’ of paintings dealing with Japanese advertisements of the 1920’s, Silver Screen film still’s and Fashion photography of the 1960’s. Over the last 12 years my work has evolved with the use of contemporary images which I have used to forward ideas within Pop Art. I am very interested in portraying figures in a contemporary manner, keeping with an original 1950’s Pop art ‘look’ but forwarding this with the use of current imagery. My paintings have been compared to many different art genres, from Realist to Pop Art, Fashion Illustration and even Art Deco.

In 2002 I made a photography series of floral images which became a base for my abstract work. In 2016 I started working in 3 dimensional paintings for the first time. ‘Linear Abstraction’ 1.0 and 2.0 are the first combined abstract pieces exploring abstraction within painting. Each piece is a combined artwork consisting of an acrylic painting on board and a plaster form also painted in acrylic.

Each photograph was minimally drawn, taking away the 3 dimensional aspect of photography and blown up to size on the board. A section of this painting is then taken and worked into a 3 dimensional hollow case plaster form. Both pieces are then painted in the same colours making the artwork as one whole piece, changing the viewers’ attention to the space in which they stand not just focusing on the walls of their environment.

The work questions the ideas of what can be considered a painting? How abstract painting is evolving within the art world? And not only how have art genre's developed in history but how artists can still work on progressing the initial ideas within different art practices to create something of their own.

In 2017 I continued my work in abstract images and developing my work through the variety of images which I was using, this resulted in a new piece entitled ‘Plates’.

During 2018 I will continue with my abstract work with a focus on installation and drawing. My new figurative painting series on large canvas entitled 12.16 deals with present day imagery from fashion photography to advertisements and will continue through to 2019.

I have an interest in contemporary artists such as Miles Aldrige, Claes Oldenburg, James Turrell and Michael Heizer. I also have a strong interest in 19th and 20th century Scandinavian art. Visiting exhibitions in galleries and museums which deal with contemporary art, fashion design, past art movements and cultural history is very important to the production of my work. I find that it allows me to focus on the importance of working with different themes, and always to push the boundaries of my comfort zone.