Emily Babette

A task of the artist is to find a suitable place or locale for one's finished artwork post-completion (if completion even exists). Art can  seem most  at home in the artist's studio where it was made. Yet most artists make work with the intention of bringing it somewhere else to dwell, even if it's only for the length of an exhibition. Interestingly, a descriptive word which stops artists dead in their tracks is the word “decorative.” A word can be no greater abhorred by a majority of visual artists. If a critic or peer describes your work as “decorative,” most of the time this  adjective  is not happily  received.  Curiously, artists who make work to sell in commercial galleries intend for their work to be bought by collectors, which generally means the work will end up “decorating” a wall. What a paradoxical predicament.  Exploring this notion further, I am now led to think of the physical wall in which the art piece is installed. ...

Inner Realms, September 7-28 2018, Hibbleton Gallery, Fullerton, CA. Opening Reception September 7th from 6pm - 10pm From mid-July until the opening reception on September 7th I have been putting together my third solo show, Inner Realms. This was my first solo show outside of any university affiliation and an important opportunity to highlight some of the most ambitious pieces I’ve made in the last couple of years. Additionally, it was also an opportunity to weave together diverse yet interrelated pieces into one gallery space.  The title Inner Realms describes the internal psychological visions of my subjects expressed by means of personal dress and decor. Fashion becomes costume, gesture becomes performance, and the gaze becomes a window into a tailored psyche. American sociologist David Riesman draws a distinction between those who “passively accepted commercially provided styles and meanings, and a ‘subculture’ which actively sought a minority style … and interpre...

As I am getting older the concept of time is becoming a more frequent subject in my thoughts than ever before. Summer has been slow to announce it's self this year in Southern California, taking it's time to increase it's intensity incrementally, degree by subtle degree. Alas, I do feel that it is finally upon us at last... and we are in for the long and lethargic drudge through the blistering summer months.  There is something so very nostalgic about the summertime for me. When I was a child in Canada, Australia or Connecticut summers were synonymous with holidays, freedom from school, and long lazy afternoons pleasurably spent wasting time . My, how times have changed... I do believe it is the predicament of the creative person to feel as it there is never enough hours in the day and never enough production happening within those hours to be satisfied. Unlike the long dreamy summers of my childhood, where a day spent rearranging all the books on my bookshelf alph...

I've been thinking a lot about human existence and history. Our lives are so fleeting and perishable. Excruciatingly so. Sometimes I feel exuberant with the knowledge that I am living. Other times I wish I could reset my life and start again; a little more graceful, a little less clumsy. Either way, I acknowledge the fact that we are on borrowed time. The earth is stable in its instability; revolving in cycles of life and death, abundance and famine. Somehow, perpendicularly to the subtle inherent chaos, we manage to live out our duplicated lives on the outer surface of this lonely planet. As we pass flame and myth down from one generation to the next, we convince ourselves that the elegant order of existence denotes personal entitlement and proof of a higher reality. Somehow, the perfected actuality of all suitable qualities needed for this life indicates the existence of an even better reality, so it is justifiable to take for granted this one. This paradox I will never wrap my...

In the beginning of the spring of 2017, I started experimenting with paper cut art. I am aware that paper cutting has been a craft and art form for hundreds of years. In fact, according to Wikipedia's page on  Papercutting , "Paper cut art appeared during the Han Dynasty in 4th century AD after the Chinese official, Cai Lun invented paper in 105 AD. The oldest surviving paper cut out is a symmetrical circle from the 6th century Six Dynasties period found in Xinjiang China." Sonja Peterson cut-out piece from her show 'Transverse Travesties', Purdue University, Spring 2017.  My initial source of inspiration was seeing Sonja Peterson's exhibit called ' Transverse Travesties ' at the Robert L. Ringel Gallery in the Steward Center at Purdue University, IN, in March or April of 2017. I reacted intensely to the lace-like  intricacies, patterning, and merging of space due to the flattened silhouetted shapes of her subject...