Emilia Telese

Dr Emilia Telese (Italy, 1973) is an award-winning artist and scholar based in Iceland.

Her practice crosses traditional media with time-based practice, including immersive, sensorial, interactive and body—responsive technology, lens—based practice, performance, installation, and public art, as well as classic media such as painting, printmaking and drawing.

Her current artistic research joins static media such as printmaking with time-based media, such as performance, to explore the border between the universal and the personal, the body as a means of expression and the questioning of stereotypes.

Emilia Telese is represented by The Artists‘ Agency in the UK. She is a member of SlM (The Association of Icelandic Artists} and lslensk Grafik (The Association of Icelandic Printmakers).

Emilia Telese graduated in Painting from Fine Arts Academy in Florence in 1996 with a particular interest in XIV Century techniques, the 1960s Italian avant-garde movement and contemporary performance. She subsequently furthered her studies at the University of Brighton (Printmaking), University of Sussex (Arts Management), University of Warwick (Cultural Policy) University of Loughborough (PhD in Social Science) and MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sustainability). She trained in printmaking under Vairo Mongatti (Florence 1934-), one of the foremost acquaforte printmakers in Italy.

She holds an AHRC CDA full bursary PhD doctorate in Social Science from the University of Loughborough, UK.

Her PhD thesis focused on the social value and the individualisation of artists in the UK between 1980 and 2010.

She has exhibited worldwide since 1994, including the Louvre (Paris 2012), the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers' International Original Print Exhibition at Bankside Gallery, London (2024) the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists' Summer Exhibition ( Birmingham 2024) The Woolwhich Contemporary Print Fair (London 2023) the New Forest Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale (Venice, 2005), Ars Electronica (Linz 2002 – 2003), ZKM (Karlsruhe 2007), Chashama (New York City 2008), Centro Cultural Telemar (Rio De Janeiro, 2010), the Freud Museum (London), Grafiksalur – The Association of Icelandic Printmakers (Reykjavik 2022, 2023, 2025), Palazzo Grifoni, (San Miniato 2023) and many more.