EMMA KALFF

All of the pieces shown here are part of my ongoing series, Holding Your Horses. It is a series of dream-like oil paintings based on my everyday experiences. My work contains elements of daily life and explores the line between realism and surrealism.

My practice involves a collaging of different scenes, either painted from photos or from life. I often start a canvas by painting a scene from life, and then I’ll move to my studio and layer in a different scene from a photo. Many of the images are from photos I take of my friends – sharing a smoke, enjoying a summer day, brooding, or getting a tattoo! 

I am interested in depicting the ambiguous world of memories and dreams. I often find I’ll remember what the carpet looked like when someone told me something, but I won’t remember who was talking. Or I’ll remember a certain building I used to love some years ago, but I won’t remember which city it was in. I find that my dreams are built on the same murky recollection that my memories are made of. This state of vague familiarity is endlessly fascinating to me, and I strive to capture it in my paintings. 

A bit about my career as an artist – in 2020 I took a road trip across the U.S and made a series of paintings, which landed me my first solo show in Telluride, Colorado. After that, my work was featured in Southwest Art magazine’s “21 Under 31: Young Artists to Collect Now”. My work has since been featured in American Art CollectorStudio Visit magazine, and Fine Art Connoisseur. I work with Abend Gallery in Denver, CO and 33 Contemporary in Chicago, IL. I am based in Colorado. 

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