EMMA HERCUS

Emma Hercus is an award-winning multimedia artist who paints naive, semi-abstract figurative artworks in brilliant, thick layers of brushy acrylics. Artworks that vibrate with an energy of pattern and contrasting/clashing colours. ‘I like to celebrate the landscape; the freedom and jaunty personalities of animals and the stories of people both ancient and modern’. Emma’s work is an unrestrained mix of imagination and observation, with no rules when it comes to what or how.

Emma’s process continues to embrace experimentality and often starts with an unapologetically vibrant layer of paint, which is then built upon so that the initial colours are still tantalizingly visible. Using wide, strongly intentional strokes of the brush that leave a rough texture to push and pull the paint, scratching and scraping it back.  She builds up works that express pattern, upon pattern, upon pattern—within and outside the confines of confidently rendered, expressive, idealized forms, elements and compositions.

The common thread throughout my work is that we need to take care of our place and its creatures and people, and to celebrate the simple joys of life.

To view Emma’s work is to engage and experience a spirited, magic journey of discovery into a space of positivity, curiosity and vibrance. An entrancing expression of appreciation that exudes energy, and exploration; which seeks to connect to provide a like-minded relationship. To make people smile.

- Finalist in the Molly Morpeth Canady Award 2023
- Supreme winner of the National Contemporary Art Award 2022
- Finalist in in the NZ Painting and Printmaking Award 2021 (postponed)
- Finalist in the Craigs Aspiring Art Prize 2021