About

Emma Wright

A corporate restructure in the early ’00s saw Emma Wright facing the prospect of having to move countries to maintain the high-flying career she enjoyed. It wasn’t a prospect she savoured and forced her to question how much she really wanted to keep her career. As is so often the case, when one takes the time to truly reflect, the answer wasn’t what she expected. The truth was that she didn’t know what her vocation was and, while she gave herself the time and space to figure that out, she painted.

A significant body of work emerged and Wright held her first exhibition in Wellington. It was greeted with acclaim and her future as “one of NZ’s favourite artists” (Robinson, 2008) was decided.

Wright has since moved to Waiheke Island and had two children with her partner. Along with her unexpected (but extremely welcome) second pregnancy came a new momentum and an energy which is palpable in the vibrant canvases she produced during that period and subsequently. Their palate is joyous in its almost lolly-like colours, the brushstrokes strong and certain, while their drips and bleeding feel calm and meditative.

Work & Process

Emma Wright’s work embraces the apparent randomness of life and celebrates the beauty of ‘the big picture’. Her love of the environment, although not explicitly depicted, is in every brush-stroke. She believes “nature is the absolute basis of, and informs, everything we are.” While Wright doesn’t profess to have any of the answers, painting affords her the opportunity to ponder the larger questions and give her subconscious free reign to create.

Wright’s works begin with words – barely visible and completely illegible in the finished pieces – whatever is in her head at the time. The text might be as inane as a few lines borrowed from Dr Seuss, or as fundamental as “I am”. Layer upon layer of different materials then make their way onto the canvas; builders’ plaster, smaller pieces of canvas, house paint and translucent acrylic. Together they form luscious, abstract ridges, drips and shapes which she describes as “representing all that life throws at us; messy, inconvenient and unpredictable.”