Emma Bolinger

Curatorial Rationale

My exhibit represents the human experience.  Though life is filled with tragedy and fear, little moments of happiness make life worth living.  I find joy in nature and being around the people I love.   I walk barefoot in the forest and collect rocks.   I love listening to the sound of other people’s voices, or the sounds of birds in the morning.  These are the moments I feel most alive.  My show reflects the connection I have to humanity itself, and my belief that all humans can relate to one another on a deeper level.  People need human connection, something that I lacked during the Quarantine of 2020.  My brother, Eli, passed away the week after quarantine began last March, and the past year has been incredibly difficult.  I’ve recently been diagnosed and struggling with PTSD and OCD, and these illnesses trick my brain into feeling isolated.  I use art as a coping mechanism, but also because I want others to understand the depth behind every piece of art I make.  Even though my struggles are not the same as anyone else’s, I strive to invoke empathy in other people.  And, hopefully, help them realize they are not so alone in this world.

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I believe humans have an essential connection to nature, from birth till death, which is the inspiration behind my child’s mobile made of bones, which I call Memento Mori, and Breath In, an ink drawing of lungs overgrown by fungi.  My series, Humanity, focuses on the unique aspects of human beings through charcoal portraits.  On the darker side of things, my watercolor self portrait, OCD Has Its Grip on Me, focuses on my struggle with OCD and medication.  I illustrated my hair and hands as suffocating and grabbing onto my face, having complete control over me- like my illness.  While all of these pieces are carefully designed with my own perfectionist tendencies, the acrylic pour portraits, Spill, and another acrylic portrait I created, Euphoria, have a more care-free feeling of self-expression.  I often focus too much on the technicalities and precision of art, forgetting that it should be about emotion and creativity instead.  This is something I wanted to explore more in these pieces.  I also did this in my collage, Freaks, which is based on lyrics from my favorite song, Freaks by Surf Curse.  “My head is filled with parasites.  Black holes cover up my eyes'' resonated with me because my mental illness makes me feel disconnected from others.  All the different cutouts form the ‘parasites’ of my mind, like the people who are watching the big clock in the sky.  They’re running out of time.  As an artist, I have expanded my medium this year, from focusing on charcoal and colored pencil portraits, to watercolor, acrylic, and 3-D sculpture.  I want to continue to pack meaning into my work, and I would like to incorporate more symbolism eventually.

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I want the viewer to feel comforted by my exhibit itself, like they’ve just stepped into a cozy tent in the forest.  I want them to look deeper into my art and understand how much emotion and meaning is poured into them.  Maybe they will feel like they know me better or will relate to what I’ve gone through.  My goal is to capture the wide range of experiences in life itself, the happy and the sad, and to show that it's okay to have both- that’s what it means to be 

alive.