Emily Withers

Artist Statement

My favourite part about being an artist is that I can constantly be learning and working to educate others. My goal during my schooling at OCADU is to learn about, explore and combine as many possible materials as I can, and I hope to learn about even more after graduation. Because of this, many of my art pieces do not look very similar, apart from the fact that they all seem to become collages of smaller works put together to form a larger concept. The media which I choose for each piece is greatly determined by the concept of the piece, or I explore a certain concept in multiple materials to see how it visually differs, and then how it compares and contrasts. The act of making is very important to me, and I enjoy painting the most, so most of my pieces include acrylic.

I am greatly interested in science and social sciences, and my work is all about life; specifically about the body and nature, often from a sociological perspective. My most recent piece is inspired by a ‘Sociology of the Body’ perspective and many readings/concepts by my favourite social scientists such as Marcel Mauss, Erving Goffman, Pierre Bourdieu, Deborah Lupton and more. Within this larger piece Bodyism, each individual work is done in its own medium depending on it’s concept, with pieces ranging from being made with photographs, to garbage, to human remains. I am working on making this piece into an art book with artist statements accompanying each image to make my work accessible to as many people as possible. I am hoping to work in very similar ways to this in my future projects. 

Within my work, I often question and explore my own self, embodiment, and existence. My art is how I am trying to figure out what it means to be alive, what it means to create. I question my own agnostic spirituality, and what it means to be a woman alive in a world that is slowly killing off its own climate, its own living beings. Despite my (perhaps negative) questioning, I try to keep my art positive and I focus on exploring my materials and the concepts together as one. I greatly enjoy teaching art classes exploring different kinds of materials with children on the weekends, and will continue to use this as personal inspiration. I hope to always continue learning and educating as an artist, and that what I have to share can make a positive influence one day. 

Land Acknowledgment

I live and work on the traditional territories of multiple nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, as well as many First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples from across Turtle Island. Tkaronto exists within the One Dish One Spoon Treaty territory, a treaty created between Indigenous groups and colonizers as an agreement to peacefully share and take care of the land and resources. I give thanks to the nations that have taken care of the land, and recognize the injustices committed by the Canadian government, and the ways in which I am complicit in a system that does not protect Indigenous peoples. I hope for reconciliation, and decolonization.