Wildflowers: Virtual exhibition and hanging paintings outside her house
By Aimee Walsh
Emma Higgins is a local artist who has found beauty within the madness with her new collection ‘Wildflowers’. Having had her exhibition cancelled twice because of Covid-19 restrictions, the exhibition will now be hosted in a virtual setting.
Emma Higgins is a Knocklyon based artist that has been working full time in art with her own company ‘Emma Higgins Art’ for the last 12 years.
Emma Higgins
She studied textile design in NCAD and has gradually built up her brand through trading locally at markets such as Bushy Park.
The showcase for ‘Wildflowers’ is her fourth solo show and was due to take place in Ballyroan Library back in September but was cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions.
“I normally try to do a new collection and have a new show every two years. This one is very overdue, and I have already started working on my next collection. It is really about adapting and doing things a different way. My plan is to make a short video of all the new work and post it, kind of like a gallery format. I am also going to do a Facebook live event and hang up as much work as I can here.”
Emma was forced to think outside the box when lockdown struck last year. Searching for new ways to showcase her work, Emma decided to hang her paintings outside her own house last summer which was well received by local passer-by’s.
“People were out on their walks and it was really nice, I actually made loads of sales as well. People were really thinking about their environments that they are in. I have a few customers that are on zoom all the time, and they bought paintings and prints to hang in the background. A lot of people are more conscious of that.”
Speaking about the process and inspiration for her new collection, Emma spoke to The Echo about how she came up with the colourful designs.
“I normally work from notebooks and I do a load of sketches and develop a range of paintings. This time around, it was different from my last exhibition I was focused on florals and dissecting flowers and looking at the different shapes and looking at the feel of florals and dissecting shapes out of it working with different colours and layering colours on top of each other.
“I was using a reverse composition process where I had sketches of compositions and I was working layering colours onto a canvas and working a negative process, making the flowers appear out of a sea of colours rather as opposed to just drawing a flower.”
The themes of the collection such as finding space and time stem from Emma’s own experiences with lockdown and managing to find some peace within the chaos of what was happening in the world.
“I found it particularly difficult being at home and trying to home-school and run the house. When you work for yourself you tend to work more hours than the average person does anyway, and it was so difficult to try and find the time to get to paint. Anytime I did get to paint was very pleasurable.”
Emma Higgins’ collection showcase is availible to view on her Facebook page ‘Emma Higgins Art’.
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