Emma Difani
Artist Biography
Emma Difani is a visual artist originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, living and working in Oklahoma City. She received a BFA in Studio Art in Printmaking from the University of New Mexico. Emma has recently been Artist-in-Residence at the Herekeke Arts Center in Taos, Artspace at Untitled in Oklahoma City, and at Oklahoma City University. She is also member of the Factory Obscura, a local collective of artists focusing on large-scale immersive installations. Her work uses the obsessive layering of printmaking to examine the complex relationships between the natural and constructed environments. Emma collects, prints, walks, sculpts, builds, cooks and draws to explore questions of identity, environment and connectivity.
Artist Statement
I am an observer, a recorder, a collector, a deliberator, a mapmaker. I draw abstract cartographic symbols from the grown and constructed environments. These symbols and characters create landscapes and maps to navigate towards a future deeply rooted in connectivity and respect for people and planet. My drawings and objects of paper and fabric consist of dozens of layers in watercolor, print and graphite. This layering reflects my training as a printmaker and mirrors the overlapping, complex habitats and communities (human or otherwise) that inhabit the places I draw. Appreciation of materials and experimentation guide my process. This ranges from cutting quilt scraps to make into paper to using the leftovers from my kitchen studio to dye fabric to using milk cartons as printmaking matrices. Paper and fabric are a direct synthesis of the natural and the cultural, mirroring my explorations of the relationships between the organic and manufactured, human made environments. The materials I use are a reflection of the careful, regenerative relationships with nature, place and community that I cultivate.
@emma_difani
Emma’s work was included in our exhibition, Girls Club Art Show V. 2.0, July 10 - October 20, 2019, and her collaborative work is currently in the Art Group Collaborative Exhibition, July 1 - August 8, 2022.
