MFA Thesis Exhibit
Emma Barnes
Alfred-Düsseldorf Painting
Artist Statement
Surface is a topsoil, an epidermal layer inviting us to wonder what is beneath and what came before. Likewise, painting is what we read on the outermost layer, an exterior where we pause to consider the residue of the brush stroke. For me, nature and landscape are another surface of my reality, past, and perception of home. However, home like much history embedded in the earth, is nuanced, complex, and even dark - no matter how beautiful on the outside. Within my work I question my own and perhaps our shared “romantic” gaze on the landscape. By leaning into the absorbent and porous alchemy of plaster, I physically submerge personal photos and imprint my mark making to conceptually wrestle with this longing for the nature of home - a landscape that I am deeply connected to but also feel a strange amount of resistance towards. Through my misuse of materials and attempts to capture the landscape, I speak to the history of both painting and photography. In the challenge to hold these various truths or feelings toward a single place all at once, I find the poetry in between the lines and language of nature. I embrace the lessons and stories we could learn from the nonhuman and effortless giving of the land I have witnessed in my upbringing and artistic practice.
![Triptych Installation of three paintings created from cast plaster](_images/01-barnes_emma-660x440.jpg)
Installation View of Barn Yard, Ocean Bed, Spanish Moss // 38 x 93 x 2 inches
![Detail view of Barn Yard, showing how the small cut photos are submerged and lost in the plaster cast. They wrinkle and warp from the moisture that occurred during plaster pouring.](_images/03-barnes_emma-660x440.jpg)
Detail View of Barn Yard // 38 x 30 x 2 inches
![Barn Bed Moss Paining On The Wall](_images/04-barnes_emma-660x440.jpg)
Installation View of Barn Yard, Ocean Bed, Spanish Moss // 38 x 93 x 2 inches
![This mixed media plaster piece resembles a collage with torn pieces of a photograph of Spanish moss. The torn shapes also have tears of the paper visible on the surface.](_images/05-barnes_emma-660x773.jpg)
Spanish Moss // 38 x 30 x 2 inches
![This purple piece is created with large rectangles printed with an image of ripples in ocean water that are tiled and disappearing into the plaster. The tiling of the rectangles mimics the pattern of a quilt but also shows the image of the ocean coming together](_images/07-barnes_emma-660x781.jpg)
Ocean Bed // 38 x 30 x 2 inches
![Diptych installation of two plaster paintings. The left painting resembles an abstract landscape with bright pastel browns, greens, blues, and pinks. The plaster is poured to look layered like typography. The painting on the right is a close up of a real tree camo pattern. The pattern is embedded into the surface of the plaster, appearing to be there and not there. It Is a neutral grey green color and leaf shapes appear on the surface with textures from canvas.](_images/09-barnes_emma-660x449.jpg)
Installation View of Untitled and Real Tree // 38 x 63 x 2 inches
![6 panels come together to create a larger image Arts](_images/16-barnes_emma-660x440.jpg)
Detail view of Swamplands // 76 x 90 x 2 inches
![6 panels Together Swamplands](_images/19-barnes_emma-660x440.jpg)
Installation view of Swamplands // 76 x 90 x 2 inches