Emma Webster, A Viper in my House (2023). Oil on linen. 152.4 x 213.4 x 2.5 cm. Courtesy the artist and Perrotin, Tokyo. Photo: Marten Elder.
Emma Webster, Suffer Nothing but Fate (2023). Oil on linen. 152.4 x 213.4 x 2.5 cm. Courtesy the artist and Perrotin, Tokyo. Photo: Marten Elder.
Emma Webster, Antigone II (2023). Oil on linen. 76.2 x 101.6 x 2.5 cm. Courtesy the artist and Perrotin, Tokyo. Photo: Marten Elder
Emma Webster, Bardo (2023). Oil on linen. 152.4 x 274.3 x 3.8 cm. Courtesy the artist and Perrotin, Tokyo. Photo: Marten Elder.
Emma Webster, A Day A Night another Day (2023). Oil on linen. 213.4 x 152.4 x 2.5 cm. Courtesy the artist and Perrotin, Tokyo. Photo: Marten Elder.
Emma Webster uses digital technologies to inform her landscapes, which transcend traditional painting.
Perrotin Tokyo brings together a selection of the British-American artist’s landscapes for Emma Webster: The Dolmens (8 March–26 April 2023), which unveils new works inspired by trompe l’oeil paintings.
Although Webster’s compositions appear familiar at first glance, the natural landscapes quickly morph into dreamlike, intangible vistas. Webster achieves an ethereal undertone to her oeuvre by using digital technologies to incorporate computer graphics into her two-dimensional sketches.
Paintings like Suffer Nothing but Fate (2023) and Bardo (2023) fuse together contrasting worlds of natural terrain and virtual reality to deliver an environment that is not quite right. Organic forms appear abnormal and what we thought was real mutates into something artificial.
On describing her work, Webster explains ‘the paintings in the show are really about this age we’re in, where the eye has become discredited. No longer is seeing believing. No longer do we trust sight to bring truth. It’s actually a machine that can be hacked’.
Alluring and thought-provoking, Webster’s otherworldly dioramas break down the barriers of dimensionality.
Main image: Emma Webster, Bardo (2023) (detail). Oil on linen. 152.4 × 274.3 × 3.8 cm. Courtesy the artist and Perrotin, Tokyo. Photo: Marten Elder.
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