Emma Fineman American, b. 1991
“There is a ghostly haunting to many of Fineman’s works as if a figure is being conjured from not only memory but also materialities of paint. Painting is characterised by a ‘liveliness’ that allows that which might be assumed dead to speak to a maker and viewer.”
–John Slyce
Emma Fineman (b. 1991 Berkeley, CA, US) paintings are adventures that struggle with the same things we each do in our everyday: time, memory, place, desire and feeling. Each of us engages with these concerns, often in a fractured and fragmented manner. Fineman–working in oil, encaustic, oil stick, and charcoal–brings our shared struggles together and unifies these across the event of a canvas. Her references to the everyday and classical situate contemporary painting in a place that is relevant to the past and present in a way few of her contemporaries can match. There is a ghostly haunting to many of Fineman’s works as if a figure is being conjured from not only memory but also materialities of paint. Painting is characterised by a ‘liveliness’ that allows that which might be assumed dead to speak to a maker and viewer. This is the case whether she is weaving contemporary or classical concerns and content into her works. Emma Fineman’s paintings are alive with meaning and actuality. At their best, they are conduits to another world akin to the works of William Blake. It sounds hyperbole, yet it is true when you see and feel her works.
Emma Fineman graduated with distinction as an MA In Painting from Royal College of Art, London, in 2018 and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a BFA in Painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2013.
