Artist set to exhibit at international fair

Emma Carter has greeted the invitation to showcase her work at the Borders International Art Fair as “a pivotal step” in her career.

Once every two years the art world coalesces around Venice for its much celebrated Biennale and countless international artists apply in hope more than expectation to get some precious wall space for their canvases. However the Coláiste Dún an Rí arts teacher wasn’t amongst those to apply for the showcase, she was scouted by the fair organisers, ‘Itsliquid Group’.

“It was a shock to the system - I’m, still a bit overwhelmed by it,” admits Emma, who is from Collinstown in Westmeath originally, but has been living in Virginia for the past six months. “I had to read the email twice to be honest with you.”

The fair runs for two weeks in conjunction with, but separate to, the Biennale.

“Anyone who is at the Biennale will be coming into the exhibition space I’ll be in,” she explains, noting approximately 800,000 tickets were sold for the last Biennale in 2021.

“The opening night is going to be very busy they said,” says Emma. “It’s an opportunity for me to get my name out there and meet other artists and learn about what they do.

“We’ll see what happens - hopefully it’s the first of many. There might be new opportunities available to me when I’m over there.”

The fact that the organisers approached Emma to participate is an amazing compliment to her and a vote of confidence in her talent. A measure of how outlandish it is for Emma to receive the invitation can be gleaned from the reaction to the news of her fellow arts grads and art teachers.

“Some of them have actually been to the fair, so when I first told them I was going they said, ‘Oh yeah sure it will be a great holiday’ - and I had to say, ‘that I’m actually going to be in the fair’,” she says with a good natured laugh. “It was a shock to their system!”

The organisers have eased much of the strain for Emma. The curators will hang the work and have all the logistics in hand.

“I just have to get myself over there and meet collectors and gallerists. It will be very busy, but I’m looking forward to it. I work well under pressure, so I’ll just be myself - I don’t know how they’ll take the Irish accent though,” she jokes.

The fair will present a chance for Emma to sell her paintings. However, given the time invested into composing the works, and then viewing the final piece, she admits it’s hard to part with them.

“It’s a weird feeling letting them go because they are going to be in someone else’s house or gallery, but it’s all part of the business,” says Emma.

Emma receives a lot of commissioned work from customers who contact her with the colour scheme of their homes and seek her to create work to compliment that palette. However, the canvasses she is bringing to Italy are ones inspired purely by her artistic process.

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Emma’s work can be categorised as abstract expressionism where emotion is key, and no figures or objects are depicted.

“If I have a hard day in work they seem more chaotic,” she observes. “It’s interesting to hear what different people see in them - there’s different shapes people see - some see animals, some see objects, even letters sometimes, and often I don’t see them until they are pointed out to me.”

“When I was first started in art college I was painting landscapes or objects exactly as they are in front of me, so I think four years in art college definitely changed my style,” says Emma, who is a graduate of the School of Design and Creative Arts in County Galway. She suspects she wouldn’t have been invited to Venice had she remained a figurative painter.

2023 has been a momentous year for Emma as she has also had her teaching role in the Kingscourt college made permanent in April. She enjoys teaching both the mainstream classes and the special classes where her experience in arts therapy is put into practice.

“The support from the school has been immense,” she says of the heartfelt congratulations she’s received from students and staff. “When I first got the email my first thought was - ‘I can’t be doing this - I’ll be up against really good artists - my confidence just wasn’t there. And then when word got out at work about it, the students and teachers really hyped me up to say yes to doing it.

“It’ll be nice to go back in September and to have the stories from Venice to tell the students and staff.”

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