Whilst wildlife conservation is enormously important to Emma, she has always felt a strong desire to help individual animals. When you hear that every twenty six minutes an African elephant is poached for its tusks, it’s easy to miss the significant loss each magnificent being. This is what influences her compositional choices. So rather than see a distant herd of zebra on the plains, she wants the viewer to connect with the individual; to get a sense of their character and soul; an intimate portrait. Emma’s style is informed by nature itself; whether it's the intricate patterns of a leopard’s markings, or the folds of an elephant’s skin, these fine details have evolved as a means of survival, so she strives to emulate them accurately. When painting each animal, attention to detail is imperative - how the bend of the body distorts the spots, how the stripes change direction slightly creating the form, how the fur clumps together or separates out because of the position of a limb, the weight of a fold of skin, even just the changes in fur type across an animal’s body. For Emma this is what breathes life in to the creature. In contradiction to this her backgrounds are not an accurate depiction of reality; but rather they provide an opportunity for abstraction, utilising a palette knife, constructing a spotlight moment for the animal to exist in for that instant, allowing the viewer to lose themselves in the work. When one of Emma’s paintings hangs on someone’s wall, she wants them to have the feeling that the animal is there in the room with them, to connect with the individual and experience the beauty of nature, along with the enduring beauty of fine art.
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