EMMA HERCUS
Emma’s work is a fusion of imagination, memories, dreams, history, and legends.
Each painting tells a story that invites you to enter. Grounded in a New Zealand setting, Emma’s figurative work explores our relationship with and within the land.
Her use of paint is experimental and deliberately accidental, with layers of colours, textures, and patterns. Frequently, she paints over previous works, creating a murky history beneath that occasionally peeks through. This builds a narrative of ideas and concepts, offering glimpses into a mythical and magical world that exists around and within all of us. Emma applies strongly intentional brushstrokes that leave a rough texture, pushing and pulling the paint, scratching and scraping it back.
Growing up as a Pākehā in rural New Zealand, Emma often draws inspiration from childhood memories and dreams. A common thread throughout her work is the call to care for our place and its creatures, to celebrate both those we still have and those that survive only in books, photos, and artworks.
- 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