an emard’s practice is a meditative process exploring world-building mythologies and the myth-making potential of queerness. Working with oil paint and leaded glass, they find poetry in the space between art and meaning; between concept, intention, and form.

In emard’s paintings, the surface of the canvas is in an interstitial state at all times. The image finds its way through processes of rubbing and blending paint on the surface and acts of removal by sanding and scraping. It is through this approach that emard creates an atmosphere of becoming, where boundaries are forgiving and time is nonlinear. Emard’s leaded-glass objects function as viewfinders and are a means to implicate and imprint physical space. The accumulation of glass and solder impose image, gesture, and frame onto their surroundings as an acknowledgement and question. In doing so, these leaded-glass objects create a kaleidoscope of the coexisting queer mythologies.

Like queerness, the future exists in the cracks and gestures of the present. It is from this devotional, affective space that emard creates art that enchants, clinging to the notion that art is a conduit towards new places, dimensions, and futures.

an emard was born into a working-class family in suburban Chumash Land / Ventura, CA and spent their formative years navigating queerness in the shadow of the Catholic Church and the light of lemon orchards, asphalt, and the Pacific Ocean. emard now resides on the unceded homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires / Chicago, IL. emard has exhibited in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Vermont at venues including Steve Turner Gallery, Block Museum, Usdan Gallery, Kibum MacArthur, Weatherproof, Some Clouds, among others.

Image: an emard, Viewfinder, 2022