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Emma Cousin was born in Yorkshire in 1986. She gained her BA from The Ruskin School of Art in 2004-2007. She has been drawing since she could hold a pencil and she drew everywhere – in her bedroom, the dining table, in front of the tv, on the beach and on journeys - and still does. She draws the things in front of her, things imagined and things felt. She is interested in exploring the normative tensions within contemporary society and employs a darkly comic and irreverent parade of female characters to do this. Painting ideas of support, mobility and progress, she illustrates metaphors to explore the resultant breach of normal correspondence between concepts and words and tension between the figurative meaning and the literal application. Cousin is a draw-er and a painter working in Peckham, London.
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Can you tell me about your practice? How do you get started on a piece of work?
I start with drawing, often sparked off by a word play or idiom or phrase or an idea that I want to 'play out' through the system of bodies. In doing that I exhaust the possible meanings of the language imagistically and literally, but it's also a way for me to understand something better, both the meanings and feelings associated.
Who are your biggest influences?
Everyday life. My close family, especially my mum. My brother, he paints Warhammer with tiny brushes, that's hard. Other artists especially Olivia Bax and Jean Philippe Dordolo who are close friends in the studio and in life and remind me to be generous when I can and be kind to myself when I'm too harsh!
Recent work was responding to the limitations of language when used to articulate the complexities of human experience and emotions considering how we might interact without it, in pre- or post-linguistic states. Taking this idea of the failure of language to the ultimate point I imagined how the gestures of the body would take over. This response to the quirks and complexities of language and its failures is central to my practice and continues to be developed in imagistic systems that examine the human body, human interactions and the future of social interaction.
How important is the choice of material in relation to realizing the concept of your work?
I use oil paint and draw with anything. The choice is central. It defines what I can do and how I can express myself.
What is your most important tool?
Light and my colours, mostly old Holland oils. A biro and a pencil, preferably a midweight tombow, I think I'd go mad without these two.
What book has been important in your practice? And tell us why it’s important.
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Finally, is there anything new coming up that you would like to tell us about?
My solo show with @niruratnam gallery opened this week across two locations in Soho: 23 Ganton Street and 6 Denman Place. It runs until 27 November.