Emily Kraus
About
Emily Kraus (b. 1995, New York City) is an American artist living and working in London and co-founder of artist-led Sala Salon. She spent one year studying in India before obtaining her BA in Religious Studies from Kenyon College. Kraus has an extensive background in yoga and somatic practices. Following her BA, she worked at Factum Arte and Factum Foundation where she learned a range of skills from traditional craft to digital rendering. Her work has been exhibited internationally, most recently at Grove Collective in London.
Degree Details
Add to contacts
Statement
I work inside a metal cubic scaffold around which I stretch a canvas loop. It is a shelter, a constraint, a tabernacle and a boundary. The machine itself–rolling bars and canvas with no end–is a metaphor for the cyclical world. To create an organic image within a rigid system whose nature is to make repetitive marks that require listening, attention and choreography of movement.
A body carves out bits of the world from negative space and inhabits its volume. And in so doing, it demarcates the world. I consider the breath to be the vehicle of communication between that negative and positive space. Rainer Maria Rilke referred to breath as the “complete interchange of our own essence with world-space.”
My studio is my painting and my paintings are my studio and together we adapt and morph to fit and fill space.
Stochastic 1
The Stochastic series is comprised of three meter paintings which are made inside a wall-based machine which severely limits my ability to see the work while I'm making it. It is like painting with blinders on, only able to see one foot of canvas at a time. I hold the memory of surrounding marks as I focus on what I can see and apply paint with an educated yet constantly surprised eye. This process forces me to remain with the present moment. This linear limitation of time is akin to the process of composing a musical score–only hearing one note at a time yet fitting it into the memory of its place in the score.
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 170 x 300
Stochastic 2
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 170 x 300 cm
Stochastic 3
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: 170 x 300 cm
Stochastic Diptych
The two paintings in the diptych are made within the same machine. The canvases are stitched together to form a long loop. Post completion, they are separated yet hold the visual memory of their single looped creation.
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Size: each painting: 170 x 285 cm
Artefacts of Stochastic 1, 2 and 3
These poles are artefacts of making. They are my tools and fill the role of paintbrush. However, they are equally works in themselves and perhaps the canvas is the tool/paintbrush. The poles mark the canvas and the canvas, in turn, marks the poles. It is a dual relationship: a palindromic process.
Medium: Oil paint on chrome poles
Size: 200 x 2.5 cm circumference
Four Sides of a Loop
Begun in December 2021 and finished in January 2022, this piece shows many of the first successes I stumbled into after months of feeling around in the dark. Created inside the original painting machine which encompassed my 8 foot cube studio. Poles held the piece in each corner and when I pulled one side, the whole room revolved. I stood inside this piece for many hours–painting and contemplating. The introspective process of working on the inside of a surface is finished when I invert the piece and the painting now appears on the outside of the loop. Here, the loop is photographed flattened against a wall in four different orientations.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 170 x 980 cm loop
Variations on a Machine
This video shows the process and performance of the painting machine. The listening and attention that I give this repetitive process situates it within the realm of ritual. I filmed this performance in the RCA Dyson Gallery. The structure is the stand-alone scaffolding machine–the first departure from the enclosed studio space.
Medium: Video
Size: 2:01 minutes