Emily Spooner is a visual artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. She holds a BFA in Painting & Drawing from Concordia University (2020) and has since attended residencies across Canada and in Iceland. Her work has been selected for group exhibitions throughout Montreal, including the second edition of Artch. Over the past year, she has developed a collaborative video practice with artist Jeff Mann, focusing on puppetry and theatrics. Recently, she was invited to participate in the project Présences, which involves a residency and exhibitions at Centre SAGAMIE (Alma, QC) and Vaste et Vague (Carleton-sur-Mer, QC).
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My artistic practice is a process of engaging with the psyche through intuitive creation. Rooted in personal experience, I am interested in giving form to the stories and symbols that emerge from both conscious and unconscious levels of understanding. These projects incorporate painting, material explorations, and traditional methods of jewelry-making, with the intention of combining works to create immersive installations and environments. Oftentimes, the subject matter of a certain project will only become apparent once the work is already in progress, at which point it can be further explored through focused research and analysis.
Storytelling is a central element in my artistic practice, with story defined as an intuitively interconnected web of elements, free from the constraints of linear logic. In my painting practice, I explore how the process of painting itself can be a form of storytelling—layers of imagery build upon one another and interact, progressing the story. While most of these layers and interactions are not clearly visible on the surface in the end, they remain vital to the painting’s totality. In recent years, materials have taken on a central role in the stories that I tell. I am drawn to the felt significance of materials, informed both by my intuitive relationship with them and my deeper understanding of their properties. In my practice, materials are not merely tools for conveying a message—they are fundamental to the message itself, interacting with one another and serving as a physical connection between myself and the ideas I explore.
