Emily Kraus (b. 1995, NYC) lives and works in London.
Emily Kraus received her Painting MA from the Royal College of Art in London (2022) and a BA in Religious Studies from Kenyon College (2017). Kraus has an extensive background in meditative, yogic and somatic practices which impacts the pace and movement with which she creates. She has worked at Factum Arte and Factum Foundation where she learned a range of skills from traditional craft to digital rendering which informs her ability to mesh manual and technological creation. Recent exhibitions include: Matija Čop and Emily Kraus, Sapling Gallery, London 2023, Young and Restless, the Stable Gallery S-chanf, Switzerland 2023, Buffer, Guts Gallery, London 2022, and My Mother was a Computer, Indigo+Madder, London 2022. This year, Kraus won the Hopper Prize (2023). Kraus’ works are in the collections of the Royal College of Art and the Simon Nixon Foundation.
Artist 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 machanism 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 requires listening, attention and choreography of movement.
The Stochastic series is comprised of three-meter paintings which I make on a cubic mechanism I have engineered for this purpose. This construction 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.