Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Nicholas Emery. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Nicholas, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
My mission is to offer an alternative way to view and experience the world. Because I do.
Today the pedagogies of “nation building”, using predetermined cultural, political, and economic narratives, as well as cartesian philosophical rationality and scientific predictability can be crushing, and deeply unsatisfying. We long for different stories that may help us realize who we are.
What I offer is a space where mystery and the imagination can flourish by allowing intuitive and sensory intelligence to determine the possibilities of subjective or phenomenological reality. In a sense, when you enter my studio, you may finally be yourself.
Nicholas, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am an artist, largely a painter, and was born in the West Indies. I grew up in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, European, and North American regions. This indivisibility of citizenship helped ferment my deep appreciation for culture, particularly art, history, language, food, and people’s unique methods for adaptation to the land. And yet, paradoxically, this way of growing up also helped me to develop a skepticism for global narratives and modern nation-building ideologies.
I believe my work, and by extension my life to the best of my ability, adheres to a different way of operating. My approach to art is to aid the viewers imagination by creating unusual imagery that may offer an alternative perspective, and therefore another approach in understanding our place in the fabric of reality. I don’t question the physical universe; I question whether it can be best be understood using logic and reason. Oceans, subterranean land networks like the rhizome and mycelium, dream messaging, forest intelligence, land imprints and memories, epigenetics, these are the mediums that I try to invest sensory thought into and understand.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I like being an artist because it teaches me to be fluid and live with uncertainty.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A long time ago I adopted the look of someone who knows things, but I don’t know most everything, really, and I like to say I don’t know, more and more. The act of knowing is a drag, like an anchor and chain hooked to my mind, always forcing me to harbor safely. The act of unknowing is a far more intuitive and exciting way to receive my day.
Contact Info:
- Website: nicholasemeryart.com
- Instagram: nicholasemeryart
- Facebook: nicholasemeryart
- Other: saatchiart.com/nicholasemery
Image Credits
All of these photographs were taken by me, Nicholas Emery