Emma Withers
Emma Withers is a painter, draughtsman and sculptor based at Asylum Studios, Bentwaters Park, Rendlesham, near Woodbridge in Suffolk. She gained a BA in Fine Art from Hornsey College of Art, Middlesex Polytechnic in 1982 and an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths' College, University of London in 1988, and took the Turps correspondence course between 2021 and 2023.
A founder member of Asylum Studios and its studio manager, she has curated a long-running series of inclusive and neurodiverse exhibitions there under titles such as "Sort it Out" and "Snoop", and worked with Suffolk Artlink as a StepUp artist, mentoring and collaborating with artists with learning disabilities. She has also worked as an eastern region artist with Oily Cart theatre company. Between 1993 and 1996 she was a part-time and visiting lecturer at Norwich School of Art, Suffolk College and Goldsmiths' College, and in 1986 she was a British Council Steward at the Venice Biennale.
Her solo shows have been at The Cut in Halesworth and at Asylum Studios. In 2013 she appeared on the ITV programme "Off the Beaten Track", drawing at Helmingham Hall a tree that had been drawn by Constable.
Artist Statement
My artwork comes back to a reflection on my own life experience, the stories I loved, and terrified me... the landscapes I got lost in as a child still remain deep in my heart and surround me.
In medieval bestiaries, children's fairytales and cartoons I find warnings, stories and colour. There are battles, there is kindness, in all communities... even among siblings.
My own family, like many others.
How can I make my way?
After all the years I find that the timeline is not a line at all - images, stories and places come back to haunt me. Some people might call it post traumatic stress- I have a profoundly disabled son who has brought so much wonder to my life as well as difficulty, and I am grateful.
At one point as a young person I thought I might be a musician- both of my sons are musicians, and my brother too. I am so moved by their healing and expression that the instruments themselves enter my work both as images and objects.
I hope to find clues in the irregular, the 'abnormal', the dismissed and discarded for here is potential for change, even beauty.
Without chaos there is no sense of order.
Energy always leads to a breaking down.
We are completely entangled with nature.
I still love the visionary artists- including among them: William Blake, Goya, Bacon, Constable.
I feel strong kinship with other female artists: Paula Rego, Susan Rothenburg, Kiki Smith- these just the top off my head... many more. The great cellist, Jaqueline Du Pre.
Drawing is always the basis of the way I make... often progressing in layers, then going back, scraping away again. I love paper, collage, homemade oak gall ink, and pastel. Pigments may be mixed with acrylic, or beeswax and oil. Objects come into my studio from all kinds of sources! My recent solo show included a shed constructed with wood, dead box tree branches and 17 defunct school cellos. Visitors, children and adults were invited into the shed to play on the instruments and to feel the resonance. I also installed 100 flutes as "plumbing" on the ceiling, walls and floor of the gallery.
In the end, it's just the work.
March 2026
Emma Withers