152  x 76 cm
Poured acrylic on stretched canvas.
 
This work is built through pour and flow. Blush pinks, milk whites, and warm reds settle into translucent veils, then thicken into darker pools and drips. Sharp notes of acid yellow flare through the surface like interruption. Broad arcing strokes frame a central, bodily form, held between softness and pressure, as if the paint is both sheltering and exposing what sits beneath it.
 
The piece sits in Emily’s ongoing practice of using abstraction to hold lived experience. The softened edges and layered washes speak to the way femininity is often defined from the outside, expected to be quiet, compliant, and fragile. Here, those qualities are re-read. Quiet becomes attention and awareness. Fragility becomes empathy, sensitivity, and connection.
 
Women’s pain is routinely overlooked or minimised, and experiences of vulnerability are too often dismissed rather than properly held. Made from lived experience of endometriosis and adenomyosis, the painting is an annotation of being in a body that has to insist on being taken seriously.