Emma Jane Whitton

about

Emma Jane is a multi disciplinary artist from Scotland, now based in Manor Park via Buenos Aires. She studied Print at the RCA, but began her practice in glass making.

Her proposal for the Becontree July Residency is to make sculptural and collage works from collected local material, and a small human sized, temporary structure encrusted with these elements in the garden. By finding and recording images, objects, sounds and textures she will engage with and understand the fabric of the community and its inhabitants. Emma Jane will also run a project connecting with children and the older generation in Becontree, asking them to recall childhood experiences with food, both good and bad, and then transfigure these visceral descriptions into her work.

Emma Janes’ work explores the idea of the uncanny and the intimate in material connections. Casting different substances together and combining these inventively allows her to explore mercurial materials that echo social and environmental instability. An important part of this is exploring the periphery of what can constitute an environment, or an exterior, and considering where the boundaries of oneself may lie. Forms that arise from these questions multiply in the work. She seeks to create situations where objects become activated through association, and the subsequent interrogation between forms and materials and space can create a contradictory atmosphere.

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Education

2013 – 2016; MA Printmaking (PT), Royal College of Art, London.

2006 – 2007; PGCE, Goldsmiths College


1998 – 2002; BA Hons Glass, Edinburgh College of Art

Selected Shows and Publications

2021 – Swimming in the Mud, Terra Nexus, Proposition Studios, London

2020 – Environmental Crisis, Gerald Moore Gallery, London

2019 – Strange at The House, Safehouse1, Peckham, London

2019 – Backyams, Millilmetre02, Kingsgate Project Space, London

2017 – Gather, 12 Star Gallery, Europe House, London

2017 – DIRT, Art Licks Weekend, London.
2016 – SHOW, Royal College of Art, London.


2016 – Multiple Project, V&A Museum, Prints Collections 2016 – Dis/Play, Café Gallery,

2016 – RCA Secret, Dyson Gallery, Royal College of Art London

2016 – RCA Secret, Art Dubai, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai, U.A.E

2015 – Impulse to… I C Visual Labs, Bristol.


2015 – Boxed Out, Café Gallery, Southwark Park, London.

2015 – RCA Flux in Dubai, A4 Space, Alserkal Avenue, Al Quoz Dubai, UAE

2015 – RCA Secret, London/Dubai.


2015 – Am I Human, Cobb Gallery, Camden, London.

Awards and Residencies

2016 – Eaton Fund


2015 – Artist in Residence CCA Tbilisi, Georgia.

2014 – Artist In Residence, Belgrade
2014 – Women’s Career Foundation Fund

Professional Engagements 2014 – 2020

2016 – Present. Fine Art and Photography Tutor (PT), DLD College, London

2015 – Visiting Artist, North Hampton University.


2015 – Artist’s Talk CCA Tbilisi, Georgia.


2014 – Fine Art Photography Teacher, Camden School for Girls.

contact information

in the studio

selected by

Sonia Solicari – Director of the Museum of the Home, London

Sonia joined the Museum of the Home as Director in January 2017, overseeing an £18.1m development of the building and gardens. Previous roles include Head of the Guildhall Art Gallery and London’s Roman Amphitheatre and Curator of Ceramics and Glass at the V&A. She has published and lectured widely on historic art and design, and histories of home.

Sonia is currently co-director of the Centre for Studies of Home, a partnership with Queen Mary, University of London and an international hub for research on the home, past, present and future. She is also a specialist advisor for the Crystal Palace Park Trust, as part of a major park regeneration project.

Photograph courtesy Em Fitzgerald.