’Emma Witter is an artist that dreams with her hands and works to another time, where nothing is disposable and everything she touches might turn to gold. Working intuitively with found and rescued biomass – by-products of London’s restaurant industry or salvaged mud larking on the banks of the river Thames – her sculptures are sensational and beguiling. Witter breathes new life into lost things, and shows us value where we saw only waste. Her process is alchemical, transforming what has been discarded into what must be saved, and her art speaks to our contemporaneous notion of the sublime.
Born in 1989, she lives and works in London and holds a first-class honours degree in Performance Design from Central Saint Martins. On graduating, Witter won the ‘Seed Fund’ Award’ from the University of the Arts London – a grant to set up her own studio practice, followed by ‘Best New Business Award’ during UAL Enterprise Week.
Numerous exhibitions include solo shows ‘Bloom’ at Hix Art in 2018, ‘Remember You Must Die’ at Sarabande Foundation in 2019 and ‘A Moveable Feast’ for the Portman Estate in 2022.
Emma is a former studio resident at Sarabande, the Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation, Xenia Creative Retreat in Hampshire and Selfridges in London.’
Nico Kos Earle, 2023
Education:
2012
1st Class Hons. Performance Design and Practice
Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design
Final major project ‘Feast’ – a devised, immersive performance, was highlighted for ‘Risk & Innovation’ and documentation requested for the CSM archives.
2008
Foundation Diploma: Art and Design
London College of Fashion
Awards / Grants:
Barcapel Foundation – Developing Creative Practice Grant – May 22
WTLF Mag X Omved Gardens – ‘Death’ Photo Competition Jan 20 : Shortlisted
Eccentric Artist of the Year – The Eccentric Club Awards 2015 : Winner
Bloom Award – Warsteiner 2014 : Shortlisted
New Business Award – UAL Enterprise Awards 2014 : Winner
Princes Trust Enterprise Programme Start up Fund – 2014: Recipient
UAL Seed Fund – 2014: Winner
Personal /NonPublished Award – Creative Review Photo Annual 2014 : Winner
Hix Award – Hix Art Gallery 2014 : Shortlisted
Residencies:
Artist in Residence – Selfridges & Picton Studios: April – Oct 21
Artist in Residence – Xenia Creative Retreat, Hampshire: Jan – Feb 21
Artist in Residence – The Sarabande Foundation Mayfair Takeover at House of Bandits: Oct 20
Studio Resident – Sarabande Foundation: Oct 18 – Oct19
Artist in Residence – Mark Hix’s Tramshed Restaurant : Jan 18 – March 18
Solo Shows:
Victorian Gold
London Craft Week – 153c Fulham Road : May 23
A Moveable Feast
The Portman Estate – 75 Gloucester Place : Nov 22
Remember You Must Die
Sarabande Foundation : Sept 19
BLOOM
Hix Art Gallery: March 18
Selected Group Shows:
Colour, Texture, Substance, No Name -Kingsgate Project Space : July 23
Curated by Robyn Graeme for Warbling Collective
In Residence ||| – Cromwell Place : June 23
With Ting Ying Gallery, curated by Brian Kennedy
Uncommon Beauty – Makers Guild Wales : April / May 23
Curated by Verity Pulford for Craft in the Bay
Claylarks – The New Craftsmen Gallery : Sept 22
Curated by Catherine Lock
Leave the road; take the trail – Xenia Creative Retreat: May 22
Curated by Sarah Griffin and Bianca Roden
Death & Animals – Odem Atelier Gallery, Stockholm : Oct 21
Curated by Nikodem Calczynski
Together – The Power of Collaboration – Gallery Fumi : Sept 21
Curated by Sam Pratt & Valerio Capo
Triggered Economics – 34 Bruton Street – June 21
Curated by Emma Witter & Jonah Pontzer
Crafting a Difference – SoShiro Gallery: Jan – March 21
With Ting Ying Gallery, curated by Brian Kennedy
House of Bandits – Sarabande Foundation at Burberry: Oct – Dec 20
Blanc De Chine Contemporary – The Scottish Gallery: Oct 20
With Ting Ying Gallery, curated by Brian Kennedy
It’s Good To Be Home – Gallery Fumi : Sept – Dec 20
Curated by Sam Pratt & Valerio Capo
Of Time and Place – @livingobject Virtual Exhibition : Oct 20
Curated by Philip Hughes & Vanessa Hogge
Vegetate – @the_vegetate_project : April 20
Curated by Anna Souter
Repeat – Rear Window London, Masons Yard : Dec 19
With Ting Ying Gallery, curated by Brian Kennedy
Florid – Rear Window London, Masons Yard : Nov 19
With Ting Ying Gallery, curated by Brian Kennedy
Artists For Blue – Andrea Hamilton Studio : Nov 19
Curated by Nico Kos for Blue Marine Foundation
Art in the City – The Painters’ Decorative & Fine Art Society : Oct 19
The Worshipful Company of Painter – Stainers
Stable – Sarabande Foundation: August 19
The Lee Alexander McQueen Foundation, annual group show
ING Discerning Eye – Mall Galleries : Nov 17
The London Group Open – Cello Factory : Nov 17
Fairs:
Eye of the Collector – Two Temple Place : September 21
Platform at London Art Fair – Ting Ying Studio: Jan 21
Focus 20 – Ting Ying Studio – Design Centre Chelsea Harbour : Sept 20
Collect –Ting Ying Studio – Somerset House : Feb/March 20
Lapada Art & Antiques Fair : Sept 19
The Other Art Fair 10th Edition – Truman Brewery : Oct 15
Talks:
Material Matters
Podcast with Grant Gibson : Sept 21
Collect Selects No 2.
Textiles and New Materials, in association with the V&A and RCA : Feb 21
London Art Fair Edit
Panel discussion with Grant Gibson : Jan 21
Living Object Gallery Tag Talks for ‘Of Time and Place’ Exhibition
Interviewing Romilly Saumarez-Smith : Oct 21
Collect Booth Talk with Ting Ying Gallery
‘Using Waste Bones From Food and Catering Industries’ : Feb 20
Central Saint Martins
Enterprise and Opportunities Sessions – Special Lecturer: Jan 17
Central Saint Martins
Diversity Matters Week – Special Lecturer : April 16
Affiliations:
Michelangelo Foundation – Homo Faber Guide For Contemporary Master Craftsmanship
Freeman of The City of London
Freeman of The Worshipful Company of Painter – Stainers
Member of the Painter – Stainers Arts Society
Member of the Painter – Stainers Strategy Committee
Curatorial Statement by Renée Pfister
“White bone found on the grazing: the rough, porous language of touch
and its yellowing, ribbed impression in the grass….”
Seamus Heaney, extract from his poem Bone Dreams (1939 – 2013)
Artists and craftsmen have always been fascinated by bone, their work often exploring the dichotomy of nature and artifice: it is an investigation of life and being. There is more than enough evidence from our ancestors who carved swimming reindeers onto antlers, fashioned weapons and tools such as spear throwers, knives, awls, fish hooks and needles as well as creating decorated flutes, whistles, toys and pendants. However, contemporary society mainly associates bones with suffering, demise and as a gloomy substance, rather than as a tool of expression and voyaging.
Yet again, artists, crafts people and scientists take a different stance working with this calcified material, making ink for body tattoos from ground animal bone, as well as soaps, candy, ceramics, oils and photographic processes.
The British artist Emma Witter utilises intricate bone structures to create fragile, flower-patterned forms. To her, this organic material conveys beauty and spirituality rather than mortality. These opposing facets inspire Witter to bring to the surface the relics of domestic animals. She acts as a bone collector who salvages her medium from restaurants, butchers and her own cooking waste along with combing the river Thames.
Interested in the history of this hard, whitish skeletal tissue and its past use, Witter states: ‘the material reveals much more and dictates the works’. She does not sketch her ideas onto paper, she works with her hands, engaging in small three-dimensional experiments, testing how the individual segments assemble and embrace each other. Her method is visceral, envisaging her finished effigies.
Her opaque miniature blossoms are made of countless carefully selected bone fragments orchestrated into delicate floral arrangement. They are attached onto small stands, displayed in glass vessels or directly on the wall to appear like beautiful, surreal botanical models and modern-day memento mori.
The cleaning process is painstakingly slow. It involves boiling and scrubbing the bones clean before they submerged in bleach and dried. Larger and more greasier specimens are placed in salt for several days in the attempt to extract any last oils, to achieve a dry texture and a clean white colour. Witter organises her findings systematically into size and their anatomical shape, akin to a tool kit. She uses different instruments and glues to construct her intricate pieces before she carefully applies a layer of painters’ gel medium on their surface which acts as a sealant to prevent the glue and bones becoming brittle.
Witter, who grew up in Hertfordshire, was immensely inspired by Henry Moore’s bone derived sculptures and visited Moore’s maquette studio regularly. She has also been influenced by Eileen Agar’s approach to nature and transformation through found objects and unorthodox juxtaposition that challenge our macabre relationship with bone.”
©Renée Pfister 2019