Artist Samantha Louise Emery creates large scale multimedia portraits of influential female trailblazers, the modern female icons of our generation inspiring others through their actions.
Through her work, Emery looks to bring awareness to the depth of the Feminine Spirit and the positive effects of female solidarity, celebrating wonderful women including activists, filmmakers and journalists who, through their work, inspire other women to rise to their highest potential.
The semi-abstract portraits mix four mediums, digital drawing, photo compositing, embroidery and painting. After digitally enhancing photographs of her chosen women and superimposing imagery of her own body, the artist instinctively paints and embroiders directly onto the printed canvas. Surrounded by her colourful paintings and an amalgam of instruments in her studio overlooking Bodrum, she laboriously weaves in and out of each portrait, layering pigment and texture, intricately translating her perception of her subjects’ unique voice, expression and spiritual colours.
The artist calls Bodrum, Turkey her spiritual home, she says “with its rich mix of past and present and bathed over thousands of years in a white light at sunrise and a golden hue at sunset, I am able to find a constant and profound source of inspiration”.
Also looking to elevate women and uphold their intrinsic rights, Emery donates a portion of the income from her work to the Working Chance charity and the Malala Fund. Working Chance is the only recruitment consultancy for women leaving the criminal justice and care systems and the Malala Fund works to give all girls the chance to an education.