REAR WINDOW.LONDON
EMMA WITTER
Britain b. 1989
Emma Witter utilises intricate bone structures to create fragile, flower-patterned forms. To her, this organic material conveys beauty and spirituality rather than mortality. These opposing facets inspire Witter to bring to the surface the relics of domestic animals. She acts as a bone collector who salvages her medium from restaurants, butchers and her own cooking waste along with combing the river Thames.
Interested in the history of this hard, whitish skeletal tissue and its past use, Witter states: ‘the material reveals much more and dictates the works’. She does not sketch her ideas onto paper, she works with her hands, engaging in small three-dimensional experiments, testing how the individual segments assemble and embrace each other. Her method is visceral, envisaging her finished effigies.
Her opaque miniature blossoms are made of countless carefully selected bone fragments orchestrated into delicate floral arrangement. They are attached onto small stands, displayed in glass vessels or directly on the wall to appear like beautiful, surreal botanical models and modern-day memento mori.
Witter earned her diploma in Art and Design from The London College of Fashion. In 2012, she received a first-class honours degree in Performance Design and Practice from Central Saint Martins. On graduating, Witter won the ‘Seed Fund’ Award’ from the University of the Arts London – a grant to set up her own studio practice.
Witter has participated in numerous exhibitions, most notably her solo show ‘Bloom’ at Hix Art 2018, an exhibition resulting from her three-month residency at Hix’s Tramshed restaurant. She was selected twice for the ING Discerning Eye show at The Mall Galleries 2017, and The London Group Open at The Cello Factory, in 2015 and 2017. Emma has just finished her year as a studio resident at Sarabande, the Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation, in London where she ended with a groundbreaking exhibition 'Remember you must die"
Follow link to Ting - Ying for more images of Emma's work.