In The Studio with...Emma Witter

In The Studio with...Emma Witter

Interview by Verity Elliott
Photo Asiko Courtesy of Emma Witter

Using shell and bone as her chosen materials, artist Emma Witter creates beautiful structures of fragile, flower-like forms that celebrate the natural make up of each individual fragment.

Sourced from restaurants, her own kitchen or scoured in the river Thames, the time taken to scrub, boil, bleach and dry each piece is painstaking but necessary. Witter aims to reveal the purity of the skeletal tissue – one that, for Witter, conveys beauty and spirituality rather than morbidity.

Since graduating in 2012 with a first-class degree in Performance Design and Practice from Central Saint Martins, Witter has won numerous awards and grants to support her practice as well as two artist residencies, her first with Hix Gallery and, most recently, Sarabande Foundation in 2019.

For the first in a series of Q&A’s with designers and makers in their studios, we speak to the London-based artist about her current work space in Kensington’s Design District.

 

Can you tell us a little bit about your studio?

I’ve very recently taken over a vacant shop space in Chelsea on the Fulham Road as a guardian until the spring. During the pandemic, so many businesses migrated out of London and onto the internet, leaving empty spaces everywhere. A silver lining at this time for young artists is that we can creep into them temporarily like little hermit crabs. My rent is “a peppercorn, if demanded” and it also saves the owner having to pay expensive business rates on an unoccupied unit.

 

Paint us a picture, what sounds and scents would we expect to experience when visiting your studio?

There’s a gentle bit of hustle and bustle outside, as it’s in Kensington’s design district, but inside the space it’s very serene .. it smells a little of wood and fresh paint as it must have recently been refurbished.

 

Which 3 words would best describe your studio? 

Calm, Quiet, Organised

 

 

What do you listen to while working?

I enjoy listening to a mixture of podcasts, to name a few: The Joe Rogan Experience, New Scientist Weekly, British Art Talks, The Michelle Obama Podcast.

I also listen to books and series on Audible. Recently while making work, I enjoyed Steven Fry’s Victorian Secrets, Jerry Saltz’s How To Be An Artist and The Whole Picture by Alice Procter.

 

Is it a shared space? If so with whom? 

It’s just me, however, I’ve built a temporary wall panel parallel to the window so that I can create window displays. I’ll be inviting friends to be part of little duet exhibitions to be seen from the street.

 

What’s the most used item in your studio? 

My scalpel, forever carving away and chiselling into the bones.

 

What are you working on right now? 

I have a few little personal commissions on the go at the moment and I’m also focussed on pulling together the plan for a research period that I would love to undergo, exploring some scientific applications that could help me to develop a new material outcome with bone and shell.

 

Follow Emma on @emma_witter_bones
www.emmawitter.co.uk

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