Emma is an artist whose unusually varied life history brought her to the practice of art.

Born to British and Mexican parents, she was raised in the post-industrial decline of 1970s northern England, an environment redeemed by the glorious countryside on the doorstep of her native Sheffield. From early childhood until her mid twenties she had little contact with her Mexican mother or her culture, a separation that has heavily influenced her work.

Emma originally chose Medicine as a career: a decision informed by the combination of a lack of perceptive careers advice and a search for security.  Her father’s premature death made her reconsider, and she decided not to continue with Medicine. A growing desire for a creative outlet led to a career as a programme maker at the BBC, but throughout this period there was a growing interest in art, and many independent experiments in making, among other adventures.  Eventually the need to pursue art outweighed the risk of leaving permanent employment. A Foundation course was followed by a Degree in Fine Art at City and Guilds of London Art School.

Though Emma studied painting, the exploration of an idea through whatever medium is most appropriate is central to her practice.  Increasingly this means trying to make subjective experience resonate through materials and spatial installations.

The key concerns in the practice have stemmed from life: the unpredictability of circumstance, absence and presence, the condition of the outsider or foreigner, the marginal and the discontinuous.  Landscape and place; feeling at home in many places and nowhere.

EMMA K. THOMAS

1973
Born in Sheffield, England.
Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Exhibitions / Activity:

2025 Keep to be installed in Offsides Sociale Haver, Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen (opening 27/28 May tbc)

2024 Installation of Keep, at Københavns Højskoleforening, Damstien 25, Copenhagen.  (5 May – 20 Oct)

2022 Participating artist presenting Walking Landscapes Aarhus, Dokk1, Aarhus. (25 May – 15 June)

2021 withNature2020, a global collaborative artwork to draw attention to biodiversity loss (postponed from 2020).  BBC World Service Radio documentary ‘A Tapestry of Species’

        Metropolis Walking Landscapes Aarhus  (participating artist, 24 Sept)

2019 Dis [Place], a solo show at Kunstbibliotekets Udstillingsrum, Copenhagen (24 Oct – 28 Nov)

2015 Sculpture by the Sea, Aarhus, Denmark
         Sculpture Inside, Aarhus, Denmark

2013 Selected for The Spring Exhibition, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen.

2012 City & Guilds of London Art School Degree Show, London.

2011 ‘ThirtySeven’: Parr St, London
        Art|Unity|Hope: City & Guilds of London Art School, London.

2010  Vault: Lambeth Accord, London (subsequently became Block336).

Education:

2009-2012 City & Guilds of London Art School, BA (Hons) Fine Art Painting (First Class)

2008-2009 City & Guilds of London Art School, Foundation Course in Art & Design

1998-2002 University of London, Birkbeck College, BA (Hons) Spanish and Latin American Studies (evenings)

1992-1995 University of Oxford, BA Physiological Sciences (Medicine)

Grants and Awards:

2015 Grosserer L.F.Foghts Fond and Billedhuggeren Gerhard Hennings Legat for House of Cards

2024 Vanløse Lokaludvalg for Keep

2025 Områdefornyelsen Bispebjerg Bakke for Keep

Collections:

Fieldings Investment Management Ltd (now owned by Fiske plc), London.

City & Guilds of London Art School

Robert J. Wadsworth, private collection, London

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Click here to download a Curriculum Vitae detailing my broadcasting and communications work: