Professor Spotlight: Sarah Emerson

In the distant North (Canada to be exact) Emory’s own Sarah Emerson has been working with the Museum of Civilization on Manif d’Art 5 Quebec City Biennial “Catastrophe”, curated by Sylvie Fortin. In this work Emerson creates a human light box that surrounds the viewer with larger than life imagery of the degeneration of nature. The glowing work has multiple separate panels but is connected through motion and continual elements. In a recent interview, Emerson explained the work was a landscape of an event falling apart, similar to how the world’s overbearing population is causing the degeneration of civilization. The work is suppose to be experienced from the inside with the images but also from the exterior as the work causes the outside of the building to glow in red. Recently, I was able to catch up with Emerson and talk about her experience.

How did you become involved with Manif d’Art 5 Quebec City Biennial?

I met with Sylvie Fortin during my exhibition at Whitespace Gallery in the fall of last year. In my paintings there are overarching themes of collapse and disintegration that are directly influenced by the theoretical dialogue surrounding the idea of catastrophe and how it is defined culturally. Ms. Fortin had already chosen the theme for the Biennial and I was happy to learn that she was interested in including my work as part of her vision. The exhibition had over 30 artists, each with a different angle regarding this conversation so it was a great contextual opportunity for my work.

In your earlier paintings, you seem to have a very organic and painterly feel to your work but in these recent instillations the work is a lot more graphic and simplified. How did you make this transition?

A lot of this has to do with location and the fact that I wanted the works for Catastrophe to be temporary and site specific. My intent for the window project was to have a silhouette image so that the experience for the viewer would be more intense and absorbing, using the entire space for the image. When the light is the strongest the viewer actually becomes a dark shadow in the space of the image, this 2 color or graphic simplicity also intensifies the luminosity of the red background and allows the outside light to play more of a role in the way it flickers and changes throughout the day.

As for the mural, the wall was built specifically to take advantage of the mirrored columns in the space. I didn’t want the viewer to be confronted as much by my technical approach to the image as much as I wanted to confront the viewer with the scale and the intensity of the colors. Sometimes the most complex combination can be made with only 3 or 4 colors. The mirrored columns anchor the wall making the image look distorted as though it is melting off the wall infinitely. In this case, because the mirrors are small tiles covering the column the simple color combination keeps the image from getting lost at the edges and allows the mirrors to reflect small rays of light.

In the end, both projects will be destroyed when the show closes and I strongly consider this reality as I choose my approach to palette and technique.

What was the reaction to the work in Canada? How did the space you were working with compliment the work?

Overall, I think the work was received very well. The residents of Quebec City really look forward to this event and there are so many ways that the public could engage with the exhibition because there were artists placed in locations throughout the city with the main exhibition space at Place Quebec. I was lucky to have work in two locations and the audience was extremely different for both pieces. The Musee de la Civilisation was chosen specifically for the window space but it operates as an anthropological Museum so the audience is less specific and not necessarily expecting an encounter with contemporary art. The mural was in the main exhibition area of Place Quebec so the power and the dialogue is affected by the placement of the work and the audience. The debate between public and private has always been very interesting to me and it is clear that the Director of the Museum, Martin LeBlanc, was very excited to expose his audience to Contemporary art and it’s relationship to the institution he operates.

What initially inspired these intriguing instillations and murals?

They came from the group of paintings I did for “Soft Trap” at Whitespace Gallery last fall. There is a strong focus on the idea of a civilization in decay and the beauty and revenge in the natural environment, the projects for Manif feel like a natural evolution of the ideas I’ve been playing with for a long time. The opportunity to exploit the scale and location was an added bonus as a result of Ms. Fortin’s support. She asked me to submit a dream proposal-to consider something I would do if I had no financial or technical obstacles and then we actually made it happen.

I noticed grasshoppers reappearing in the works multiple times, especially in Feast, do they have a particular meaning within the work?

It’s a combination of locusts, cicadas, and grasshoppers that keep popping up in my newer paintings. I wanted to enlarge these swarming insects to be the same size as the viewer so they are both confrontational and fantastical. The scale also creates a situation where the viewer can be witness to an event and participant at the same time. The value placed on them as images is interesting because they represent a plague in secular and religious imagery but the noise associated with them can be soothing depending on your experience of southern nights. I also hear them less and less as development and progress overwhelm our natural areas. So in many ways they are nostalgic to me but I prefer to rely on them for the purposes of symbol and sign as they relate to our shared cultural mythology.

How did you create the light box instillations? What mediums did you use?

The window project is an inkjet print on linotec film. It’s similar to the material used for car window tint and it is applied using water, it’s used a lot for advertising purposes. I did the initial drawings for the windows to scale with the idea that the overall image would be a panoramic of connecting verticals. The drawings were scanned and printed by Colorchrome Atlanta.

On your blog you mentioned you will be working on a public project for Flux Projects in Atlanta later this year. What will this entail and will it relate back to the Manif d’Art 5 Quebec City Biennial project?

Well, I am doing a window project at 330 Peters Street as part of Flux Projects on October 1^st. I’m still working on the imagery because we just found out that the location was approved yesterday so a lot of the details are still being worked out. I keep thinking Leaves of Grass meets Friday the 13^th so we’ll see where that leads me visually. I am always thinking of my audience so, for me, finding the right balance between collapse and beauty is the best part of making pictures.

Mainly, I am really looking forward to working with Flux Projects, their mission to make art more accessible to a wider Atlanta audience is wonderful and I appreciate the opportunity to have a window in such an accessible location to the public.

Most importantly, when will you be teaching again at Emory!?

I’ll be back at Emory this summer teaching Beginning Painting and Drawing and I recently found out that I will be back in the fall for the 300 level Painting and Drawing as well as the 200 level in the spring. I’ve really missed my students this year so I can’t wait to be back.

More of Sarah Emerson's work can be viewed here.