BVA152, Lecter1,Emma McLellan

The artist for our first lecter in the second semester was Emma McLellan. She is a local artist and also she is teaching in our school. I still can remember the first class of my year one in the printing room, we saw Emma was rubbing her work on the panel. She also explained what and why was she doing there and she always have a nice smile on her face. That’s my first impression about Emma McLellan.

The presentation that she brought for us was some of her art work and the influences. At the beginning, she showed us few pages of her visual diary when she was in art school. She recorded her thoughts, ideas and concepts in her visual diary.

Emma is very interested in animals and patterns. The mixture of the animal bodies are always appear in her art work. She used found images from the old books and used photoshop to edit the animal bodies by mixing or twisting them to become a new image or pattern. She also use animals to make patterns in photoshop. She will twist or flip them into a certain shape as William Morris’ wallpaper. Emma also use William Morris’ wallpaper a lot too. William Morris was an English architect, furniture and textile designer. The wallpaper he created were always dazzling and detailed. When Emma put the patterns from the wallpaper into her work, the colour is more settled not as colourful as William Morris’ work. She likes to put many layers into her work to create a sense of depth. Emma transformed the William Morris’ wallpaper’s style into her style and put it into her art. I think this is a very good habit for an artist same as us students. Combining of the images and our own thoughts to become my new work.

Emma McLellan likes to use different materials in her work. Paints and screen prints on paper, fabric or panel. She likes the looseness of the paint and the control of the screen prints. As the way of the paint can be very loose ,she can control the looseness of the paint. When Emma was showing us some of her art works, she said she doesn’t like to work on the fabrics because she is not happy with the bouce of the fabric. Many of her art were worked on panel. The hardness of the panel allows her to rub, paint, print or rework so many times. I think it is a perfect material for her to use. The panel also allow her work stand out when it is hanging on wall. I think there is a comparison between William Morris’ wallpaper and Emma McLellan’s patterns. William Morris made his wallpaper very chromatic but it was flat as the wall. In Emma’s work, the patterns are more settled but it stands apart from the wall on the panel.