Emmy Cooper Granville

I'm Emmy (AKA Nightmarish Meatballs). I'm a horror writer and self-taught painter, specialising in lowbrow art and pop-surrealism. My love of writing and reading horror and "weird girl lit" (sometimes known as "femgore") makes its way into my paintings through odd looking, vaguely unsettling creatures I call "Badly Drawn Ghouls."

I like creating characters and building little worlds for them to live in, and a lot of these neon-coloured creatures have lives of their own. Their personalities may or may not be somewhat influenced by my own occasional eavesdropping moments at cafes, where I pretend not to listen to the local gossip...but am definitely listening to the local gossip. I can't help it. I'm a writer. The local HOA/body borporate drama is perfect inspiration for fiction!

While I love working with bright, happy colours and bold outlines, I tend to examine darker things—mainly the dynamics of unconventional beauty standards and mental health, and the pressure of having to always wear a mask in a society that demands constant perfection, worships relentless productivity, and expects nothing less than conformity at all times.

I chose the boring route and got my Bachelor's degree in communication studies (I'm still not exactly sure what that means...it's pretty vague) at a liberal arts college in the Midwest, with a minor in psychology.

I then immediately entered Ultra Boring Mode and got a Master's degree in project management, because it could probably be useful for something? (Spoiler alert: it's never come in terribly handy in a professional sense, to be honest, but I did get a crash course in what it's like to work full time, 40+ hours during the week, while also going to school full time for a graduate degree on nights and weekends. I also met a lot of interesting people in grad school. "Corporate" stereotypes who, underneath, were genuinely interesting folks who cared about things other than just rising and grinding! I definitely think it's influenced the way I approach art, because everything I paint has a detailed fictional backstory, rooted in character development and narrative storytelling.)

Art is more fun than both communication studies and project management. I do really like psychology, though. People are fascinating.

2026
• YELLOW, Unassigned Gallery—Melbourne
• Sun-Kissed, Brunswick Street Gallery—Melbourne
• Pretty Ugly (solo show), Brunswick Street Gallery—Melbourne

2025
• The Other Art Fair—Melbourne
• The Architecture of Collapse, Penny Contemporary—Hobart
• ANTS 3.0, Unassigned Gallery—Melbourne
• In the Making, Unassigned Gallery—Melbourne