In Conversation With Emma Reynard

In May 2020, we interviewed Emma Reynard as part of our series ‘In Conversation With…’. Below is an overview of Emma’s interview. You can find the recording of the interview on our IGTV. Find us on Instagram at @junctionartsUK

Emma Reynard is a practising artist and art tutor. Emma has many years of experience working with communities and in educational establishments.

Emma’s work is fundamentally about drawing which can be quite experimental and expressive. She makes sure she does a few minutes drawing every day. Emma takes this into many different fields. Emma’s BA degree was in textiles, she then worked in theatre making costumes, backgrounds and props. After this she worked with another artist running educational work with teachers, communities and schools.

Later, Emma embarked on an MA in illustration to find her own practice and confidence again. Social history has always had an importance in her life and work and this informed her MA as well. We heard about a fantastic collection of letters she found documenting on man’s life.

One of the main themes of Emma’s work is natural history. Emma is fascinated with the minute intricacies of the natural world that cannot be seen with the naked eye. She uses microscopes to look closely and draw from what she sees. This interest was all sparked through a project with The Natural History Museum when she lived in Oxford. During this project she had the chance to look at many specimens up-close from the Darwin and Wallis collections.

Emma has always had a keen interest in gardening and botany. Explorers and adventurers have also heavily influenced her work, especially the curation and presentation of found specimens. This can be seen in her recent surface pattern design, through layering and organisation.

Junction Arts worked with Emma on ‘Art on the Model’ [LINK] https://junctionarts.org/community-projects/art-on-the-model/ a public art project at New Bolsover Model Village. Emma worked with lots of different local groups, families and the primary school. In the project Emma wanted to focus on personal stories and memories.

A lot of Emma’s work in communities is with domestic violence safe houses, homeless shelters, hospitals and mental health centres. The therapeutic side of making art and working with people is important to her work and it can be really powerful.

At the moment Emma is working in surface pattern design. This is a new technical leap for Emma, she hasn’t really used digital techniques in her work before. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic she has had more time to focus on her own work and learn new techniques.