Emma Bremner - Flights of Fancy and More

Join us as we journey through the creative endeavours of local artist Emma Bremner.
In her own words:

I’m a disabled artist, writer, and living haunted house. I grew up constantly drawing. As a child, I trained in charcoal, pastels, and perfect hot chocolates at the local Irish Club. In high school I developed an interest in scribbling on my own skin or scrap paper with shiny gel pens — much to the chagrin of my grade 10 English teacher — and began to explore amateur photography with my family and friends.

By the end of grade 12 I’d lost all the joy that I once found in drawing. Nothing I made was good enough for me. So, for a decade, I only picked up my pencil to do a few simple line drawings and to mark out my embroidery. I thought I’d lost that part of myself forever, until I was finally prescribed medication for my ADHD, and, shortly after, walked into the European Masterpieces exhibit at GOMA. I sat down in the community art space of that exhibit and I drew still life for the first time since I was a child. And then I bought a season ticket, stocked up on supplies at Officeworks, and returned to draw again.

Since then, I’ve been producing multimedia artworks in charcoals, pastels, and metal leaf, and am currently tackling watercolours.I returned to art because it brings me joy again. Even when it’s not perfect. Even when I want it to be. So now my art is a celebration of imperfection to keep the inner perfectionist at bay, because making any art — even bad art — is better than making nothing that brings yourself joy.

Emma Bremner.