The fruit, the woman and the monkey. Painting

(Sept 2018) Oxfordshire based Contemporary British Artist Emma Souter is best known for her large-scale charcoal and oil action paintings. Expressing notions of lost control or great flux they are by contrast all processes of looking to be still or to distil. The lasting impact of growing up on the Isle of Wight in a rural environment, surrounded by land and sea, remain evident through the sense of traveling outwards and open space in her works. She is less well known for her writing, recordings, illustrations, installations and assemblages, which form an integral part of her creative process and demonstrate the significance of tactile and multi-sensory experience, prioritising sound and touch. Studio practice is frequently spent drawing, field recording, reflecting on freewriting, illustrating objects, staring into space or outdoors. Energetic paintings, appearing quick, are slow to produce, some laying dormant for years between busts of activity. Whichever media is used her works are all positions; revealing, realising and understanding actions and attachments. She keeps hold of many of her works for years before sharing them with others or letting them go, instead choosing to live with them a while. Emma advocates people creating works of their own. Alongside her studio practice Emma is currently a sessional Art and Design Tutor for The British School of Upholstered Furniture and is an Education coordinator and Arts Practitioner for Adumbration Arts. Emma continues her studies as an independent researcher, establishing a programme evidencing the potential cognitive and mental health benefits of artistic enquiry.