biography
Emma Roberts is a disabled artist based in southwest Devon. Born in Torquay, Emma has always watched the world carefully. She is interested in the concept of preciousness and disproportionate burdens of care on women.
She completed a Masters in Fine Art at Falmouth University, graduating with a distinction in 2025; focusing her final major project on ambivalence in mothering. Prior to this, Emma completed a year-long mentoring course at the Newlyn School of Art in Cornwall.
Emma makes oil paintings on linen and copper. This work is often accompanied by three-dimensional manifestations of thoughts and feelings that consider the impact of scale and perception, and the creation of preciousness.
gallery
artist statement
I paint to remember how things felt. I paint to know how things feel. I paint because I am scared that my children will not remember how much I love them when I have died. Painting goes beyond my mortality.
The main themes in my work are mothering and loss. I want the language of my work to connect with an embodied sense of preciousness, including the pain, vulnerability, rage, and hidden despair that accompanies mothering in its truest form.
I would like to contribute to dialogues that challenge disproportionate burdens of care on birth givers and the incongruous relationship between lived experience and the concept of a ‘good mother’.
about
In a moment, a brief, indefinite interval of time, everything can change. There will always be a last kiss, so linger a fraction longer when tender moments arise.
I am unashamedly sentimental, having learnt that life is short and precious. My practice is embedded in the knowledge that in a moment, everything can change. This drives me to linger when tender moments arise and notice when connections and disconnections occur.
I make oil paintings, mostly on linen or copper, in a process that makes and removes marks, overlaying imagery, and revealing figures and the emotion of a moment. Although there is often a sense of immediacy and looseness in some of my current works, there are also more formal elements to my practice and my paintings.
I make both large and small works, often veering to the miniature. I am fascinated in the perception of preciousness and how it becomes entwined in objects. I often accompany my paintings with small sculptural elements; figurative manifestations of feelings and experiences.
selected events
Thelma Hubert Open 2025, Honiton, 12 July 2025 to 23 August 2025
Jacksons Art Prize, extended long list 2025
Mortal & Strong, Scars of Gold, London, May 2025
Community engagement project, Allegory and Ambivalence: the unmasking for a good [m]other September, 2024
Birdwood Gallery: Liminal Spaces, Totnes, September 2022
Artizan Gallery: bursary prize exhibition, Torquay, March 2022
Artizan Gallery: English Riviera Winter Open, Torquay, December 2021
Fronteer Gallery: contemporary portraits, Sheffield, November 2021
Fronteer Gallery: miniatures, Sheffield, October 2021
Artizan Gallery: Gossamer Threads, Torquay, August 2021
Birdwood Gallery: Shared Spaces, Totnes, May 2021
Gardens Gallery: The Space Between, Cheltenham, December 2020
Artizan Gallery: English Riviera Winter Open, Torquay, December 2020
Long-listed for Mother Art Prize 2020
PZ Gallery: Aquarium, Penzance, November 2018
Chapel House, Newlyn School of Art Group Show, Penzance, July 2018
contact
https://www.instagram.com/emmarobertsartist/
Emma Roberts 