Emma Griffiths:
Untitled (42)

Until 11 May

Penrith Regional Gallery is proud to continue its support of emerging artists from Western Sydney, with the first exhibition of local artist Emma Griffiths. Emma is a Penrith-based artist whose interest in art began while a student at Nepean Creative and Performing Arts High School. Since then, Emma has pursued an interest in the documentary capacity of photography utilising platforms of self-organisation and representation to share her work with audiences across Australia and internationally.

Emma continues the tradition of the artist as one who encounters and creates in response to their built environment. But perhaps the term flaneuse may be more appropriate than flaneur. Author and translator Laura Elkin describes the flaneuse ‘a determined resourceful woman keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk’, a notion that resonates across the works of Emma Griffiths.

This exhibition, Untitled (42), represents a small selection of Emma’s voracious appetite to experience and interpret their surroundings through the creation of artworks through contrast. Her work situates familiar locales such as the Nepean River and our surrounding suburbs in a new light, allowing audiences to consider ideas of place and identity. The exhibition , nods to the Science Fiction text, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where a supercomputer called Deep Thought is asked to answer The Great Question ‘of Life, the Universe and Everthing’ to which is simply responds, 42. A number that has become synonymous with artistic and critical concepts of being, rather than symbolism.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Emma Griffiths is an emerging photographer and artist who works with black and white film, infrared and digital photography. Based out of and studying/working in Western Sydney since high school, they use their limited resources to create unique and interesting monochrome and colour photographs. Interested in the environment around her, she captures most of her work as a way to communicate how she sees and experiences the world. Inspired by artists such as Edward Hopper, Ansel Adams, Jason Kummerfeldt and Michael Kenna, she uses these influences to grow and experiment as an artist and photographer.

@ember.in.rain

PUBLIC PROGRAMS

AUTUMN SUITE EXHIBITION OPENING, SATURDAY 22 MARCH,  6pm

All welcome, free entry. RSVP to gallery@penrith.city by Wednesday 19 March

This exhibition is supported by Penrith City Council, Penrith Performing & Visual Arts, the NSW Government through Create NSW, and TLE Electricals.