- Mar 14

Emily Starck

Emily Starck is a post-abstract expressionist painter who has been extensively published on Saatchi Art, Rise Art, and Singulart, being featured in various curated collections, published in catalogues, critiqued, and interviewed on such particular platforms. She has also had substantial amounts of large exhibitions throughout France. A favorite and popular artist on social media such as LinkedIn and Instagram, her following remains immense.

Starting out as a figurative artist, Emily hesitated working abstractly until realizing she had a natural talent with freeform painting. Her paintings range from midsize to large to huge surfaces, created in a spacious industrial studio space with splattered paint all over the room from working on her vast body of art over the years.

Noting the techniques, we can observe painterly scribbles, circular motions, and smears of paint with various wet-on-wet applications. There remains very little muddy qualities in the paintings suggesting Emily cleans her brushes often or switches through new brushes frequently. The energy and movement clearly shows us a critical aspect of the emotions she conveys to the viewer. Best described as sectional action painting, for the art often contains spatial qualities and divisions throughout the composition. If we were to divide Emily’s paintings into nine sections, each area could be a finished piece, the variation throughout the surface leaves a distinct structure of combined improvisation.

Let’s compare and contrast two paintings, Emily in Wonderland (third image from top of article) and 16 September 2023 (pictured above). The first painting, named after herself, contains her signature characteristics of a filled composition with limited and controlled negative space. The painting pulls us to the left and right and drags our eyes down, an energetic painting reflecting either mania or joy. 16 September 2023 in contrast remains a much quieter painting with her signature chaotic and feral brush strokes controlled and confined to selective space. Best described as controlled chaos, the painting restrains itself into three distinct sections of cool, warm, and neutral tones. The contrast between these two pieces reflect an artist who instills clear variation and experimentation with her application of paint.

The paintings are highly stimulating however usually containing muted colors and low contrast, creating a balance which interprets the poetry of abstract art. Imagine sipping on a glass of wine at a table, staring at Emily’s painting, with a notepad and pen at hand. I could imagine the improvisational structure of the works could get one’s creative juices flowing. Although I have not delved into creative writing since my early teens, I could imagine reflecting on the different emotions conveyed within the works. The colors and direction of the brush strokes may vary from subtle to fierce to savage, revealing a sense of urgency, melancholiness, sorrow, jubilation, or even anxiety and panic. When the paint collides in higher contrast tones between dark and light there remains a vast tension. Or when the colors remain muted and gently scribble into one another a perception of a soft dance of contemplated gentle emotions.

With her art in numerous private collections, Emily Starck’s bold paintings shall enforce the aesthetics of pure painting across the land. The works reflect surface, paint, and the imagination without fluff or excessive qualities.