Emma’s sculpture appeals to the senses; her work explores human experience: from how we feel, to how we move, to how we deal with life and the choices we make.

Why books

As you will have noticed, several of my sculptures involve books and you may be wondering why….

My interest in books is more than a physical one: they are source of imagination and wealth of knowledge; a record of what humanity has achieved and to me therefore very symbolic. This makes them an interesting prop to play with in my sculpture; whether it be a figure in awe of a large white book towering above him, a figure daydreaming on a pile of gleaming books or someone climbing a tower of books, absorbing their knowledge.

Like many people I have always enjoyed the aesthetics of old, hardback books: the weight and way they feel, the various textures, the pronounced edges of the cover and spine, the folds & lines of the pages, but it wasn’t until a conversation with a client that I considered using them in my sculpture. This led to a commission, during which I got very excited about their sculptural potential: I liked how I could use them as building blocks to make plinths or just stand them on their own for figures to interact with.