Emelia Kerr Beale — UK New Artists

Emelia Kerr Beale is a Nottingham-born artist based in Glasgow. They work across drawing, sculpture and textile to process the complexities of illness and hold discrepancies and contradictions together in tension, creating moments where discomfort/pleasure/anxiety/joy coexist and interact. Through the use of motifs and text, they consider how imagination and repetition can be coping mechanisms. Their practice pushes for more expansive understandings of illness that reject neat categorisations and binaries. Emelia's research is rooted in queer theory and feminist disability studies, as well as lived and embodied experience.

Emelia graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2019. Recent exhibitions and projects include Platform, French Institute, Edinburgh, (2022); TH4Y, GENERATORprojects, Dundee (2020); Tonic Arts Life Under Lockdown commission for Western General Hospital, Edinburgh (2020); Bathing Nervous Limbs, Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh (2021); and Disability Arts Online and Attenborough Arts Centre support commission (2021). Recent residencies include The Bothy Project, Isle of Eigg (2019); The Royal Drawing School Artist Studios, Dumfries House, Cumnock (2019 and 2021); and Hospitalfield’s Graduate Programme, Arbroath (2021-2022). Emelia is drawn to things that create space for collective (un)learning, and contributed to In Session fka GRADJOB (2019-2020); Eastside Project’s The Exchange (2020); and The Newbridge Project’s Collective Studio (2021-2022).

UKNA Projects:

Taking Place: Lincoln - New Artist Collective