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 KATHLEEN THOMAS
1973
Born in Sheffield, England.
Lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Exhibitions / Activity:
2024 (forthcoming)
Københavns Højskoleforening, Damstien 25, installation of Keep to be exhibited from 5 May to 20 October.
2022
Dokk1, Aarhus, joint exhibition to present in physical form the Walking Landscapes Aarhus project (25 May – 15 June).
2021
Metropolis Walking Landscapes Aarhus (participating artist, 24 September)
withNature2020, a global collaborative artwork to draw attention to biodiversity loss (postponed from 2020). The BBC World Service Radio documentary ‘A Tapestry of Species’
2019
Dis [Place], a solo show at Kunstbibliotekets Udstillingsrum, Copenhagen (24 October – 28 November)
2015
Sculpture by the Sea, Aarhus, Denmark
Sculpture Inside, Aarhus, Denmark
2013
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.
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 (part-time)
1992-1995
University of Oxford, BA Physiological Sciences (Medicine)
Grants and Awards:
2015
Grosserer L.F.Foghts Fond.
Billedhuggeren Gerhard Hennings Legat.
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:
