Project Atrium: Sarah Emerson
March 23, 2013 — July 7, 2013
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Painting grand-scale murals with a fierce intensity, Sarah Emerson spotlights the fragility of life and man’s interaction with and impact on his natural surroundings.
In Black Sea of Trees, her new Underland mural for Project Atrium, Emerson explores the space and scale of the Haskell Atrium Gallery to create a view for those standing at the edge of the wilderness, safe and sound from the blackness in the distance. Using the impressive scale to emphasize the mystery and power of nature and the unknown lurking in the dark or beneath the surface, the mural documents an imagined landscape based on the visual exploration of innocence lost and the beauty within our natural environment. Within the composition, Emerson integrates large-scale letters spelling SAFE & SOUND in a whimsical, sweet, and comforting text type. This creates a jarring contrast to the steaming, molten rivers of blackness ooze down the mountain, leaving behind trees stripped of foliage and the skeletal remains of its arboreal denizens. Overall, the piece shows the epic aftermath of man and nature’s eternal struggle to coexist. While she tried to reassures the viewer that all is safe and sound at the edge of the wilderness, she reminds us, as Robert Frost stated that “…the woods are lovely dark and deep.”
Emerson’s freewheeling spirit can be traced back to her nomadic childhood, growing up in several places in Louisiana, southern and central Florida, and Michigan. Exposed to a mixture of rural, suburban and urban landscapes but never settling in one area for too long, she felt a certain detachment from what she calls a “sense of place and its occupants.” Unable to define anywhere in particular as home, she found solace in local wooded areas, yet always with a restless eye looking toward the horizon of her parents’ next destination.
For her Underland series, Emerson has focused on creating underworld reflections of the natural landscape. Known for using vibrant and iridescent colors in her early work, she had rarely considered using black as a dominant color before starting the series. However, the haunting scenes of animals trapped in black, viscous fluid following the BP oil spill on the Gulf Coast in 2010 inspired her to shift her color palette, thus altering her work thematically and visually. Some of her early Underland paintings, four of which can be observed in the stairwells to the upper galleries, depict a fantastical study of an actual place combined with the myths and remnants of the real events associated with that location. For example, Aokigahara Forest in Japan, a legendary suicide destination and a haunt for demons in Japanese folklore, is reflected in several Underland pieces. For Emerson, the artificial underworld in her paintings becomes a story of its own, an apocryphal place mimicking and appropriating a reality of paradise and innocence lost.
An Emory University art lecturer, Emerson received a BFA from the Atlanta College of Art and an MFA from Goldsmiths College. Over the past decade she has exhibited her work in galleries and museums throughout the United States and Europe including White Columns, New York; Cosmic Gallery, Paris; Whitespace Gallery, Atlanta; and Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT.
Project Atrium: Presenting Sponsor:
Project Atrium: Supporting Sponsor
Project Atrium: Contributing Sponsors
Agility Press
Arbus Magazine
The Boeing Company
The City of Jacksonville
Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville
Florida Division of Cultural Affairs
Folio Weekly
Omni Hotels & Resorts
WJCT Public Broadcasting
Image 1: Sarah Emerson
Black Pool II, 2012
Acrylic and rhinestones on canvas
Image 2: Sarah Emerson
Flood Remains, 2012
Acrylic and rhinestones on canvas
Image 3: Sarah Emerson
Sea of Trees II, 2012
Acrylic and rhinestones on canvas
Image 4: Sarah Emerson
Sea of Trees II, 2012
Acrylic and rhinestones on canvas
Image 5: Sarah Emerson
No More Dreaming Like A Girl, 2012.
Acrylic paint on wall, desk, Snow White soundtrack,
bean bags. Installation view at Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. Courtesy of the Artist.
Image 6: Sarah Emerson
The Moon is Down, 2010.
Lintec film on glass. Installation view Flux Projects 2010, Atlanta, GA.
Courtesy of the Artist.
Image 7: Sarah Emerson
Underland, 2012
Mural commissioned by Living Walls Atlanta Acrylic paint on 2 walls, 17 × 80 ft. each Installation view: Reynoldstown at Fulton Terrace and Holtzclaw, Atlanta, GA
The Preview
Friday, March 22 h5. Patrons’ Preview*
6-7 p.m.
By invitation only
RSVP via Eventbrite
(904) 366-6911 ext. 208
Members’ Preview
7-9 p.m.
Free for Members
RSVP via Eventbrite
(904) 366-6911 ext. 208
Public Programs
Saturday, March 23, 2 p.m.
Inside Project Atrium: Sarah Emerson
Sarah Emerson will discuss her work, process and career.
Attendance to this lecture is free for all regular admission fees apply for non-members to visit galleries either before or after the lecture.
MOCA Theater