We were lucky to catch up with Emily Strong recently and have shared our conversation below.

Emily, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project that I’ve worked on is my ongoing series of Figurative Landscapes. What makes this series so impactful for me and, from the feedback I’ve received, my viewers is the collaboration with the models for each painting. Every model in the series generously shares their experiences with their body image, gender, cultural identity, and how society and the people they know challenge or support the way they physically exist in the world as well as a broad array of personal anecdotes about their lives. A transcript of the interviews are displayed with the paintings when they are exhibited. The interviews give the models a voice in the process and a platform to share their stories. Their identities are kept anonymous, but their words hold the power to relate with viewers who may have experienced the same thing or give insight to those who may have previously considered themselves unimaginably different from the speaker.

As an artist, building a stronger connection with the subjects of my work thanks to their willingness to share intimate insights into their lives has been so inspiring and creatively invigorating. I want to use my artistic platform as a way to help connect people and shine a spotlight on the wide variety of beauty, love, challenge, and growth that makes up the human experience. I am deeply grateful to have the opportunity to act as a vessel to share these stories and create artworks based on them.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up in the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania and attended Moravian University in Bethlehem, PA for my undergraduate degree. I graduated in 2015 with bachelors degrees in Studio Art and Psychology with a minor in Sociology. All of these areas of study have impacted the way I approach making art from subject matter to formal elements and, in the case of my Figurative Landscapes, the model interviews I consider an integral part of each artwork.

Visual art and storytelling has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember and that has had a huge impact on who I am as an artist today. I was extremely fortunate to have parents who valued the arts, being avid readers, artists, and musicians themselves. They encouraged my sister and I to make things from a very early age. I’ve also been lucky enough I’ve had incredibly encouraging teachers and specifically art teachers from a young age as well. That kind of support is rare and invaluable.

I am primarily a figurative oil painter, often working on large-scale oil on canvas paintings of the human form. Some other types of work I do are nighttime landscapes, celestial bodies (such as nebulae and planets), traditional figurative painting, vanitas still lives, and commissioned portraits. I love working with clients who have a specific vision in mind or have a special person in their lives that they want immortalized in a work of art! It’s incredibly gratifying to hear how happy my clients are when I’m able to bring their ideas to life through my art or when a collector expresses how much they love having my artwork hanging in their home.

In addition to my studio practice, I have worked as a mural artist, curator, collections archivist, and artist’s model.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Arts education from an early age is so important for everyone, regardless of what field they work in later in life. A broader understanding as a society of how art is a powerful tool for communicating and connecting and how the arts brings a richness to life would lead to more widespread support of artists and artmaking.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My main goal as an artist is to create works that inspire and connect. With each painting, I work to capture sensitive moments or aspects of our surroundings that evoke a sense of wonder and spark curiosity about ourselves and our relationships to others and the natural world.     

Contact Info:

• Website: www.emilystrongfineart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilystrongfineart/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilystrongfineart