'Emily Hartley Skudder's works capture a sense of cheaply-manufactured glamour and imitation luxury, like polyester lingerie or Italian-roast instant coffee granules. Yet, her paintings do not give the impression of belittling the pursuit of affordable glamour. Rather, the target of her critique is the sense of body shame that comes as a freebie with each purchase. She transforms decorative sink tops into windows that invite you to peer into the dark psychology of vanity — the manufactured compulsion to scrub away the messy, drippy parts of ourselves and rinse them down the fucking bathroom sink.' — Chelsea Nichols, The ART Paper, 2022
Read More__Emily (b. 1988, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland) is currently based in Ōtepoti Dunedin as the 2023 Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago, and this year she won the Molly Morpeth Canaday Major Award. Emily graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury in 2012. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Aotearoa, including at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Gus Fisher Gallery, The Dowse Art Museum, Hastings City Art Gallery, The Suter Art Gallery, and a solo project with Christchurch Art Gallery's Outer Spaces programme. Emily has also exhibited in Australia, Japan, China, and multiple exhibitions in New York City, USA. She is currently working towards a large exhibition of installation, sculpture and painting to open in February 2024 at the Hocken Collections, Ōtepoti, as the culmination of her Fellowship.
Text courtesy Jhana Millers.
