Works in Progress
If you would like to learn more about a piece, arrange a studio visit, or acquire a work, please email me at emmymulindwa.art@gmail.com. You can also message me on Instagram @emmymulindwa.art if that is more your thing.
Summer is here and that means the easel is back on the front porch!! I have a number of new abstract oil paintings in the works. I am thinking about belonging, and the organic way relationships form, first from family and caregiving relationships and early friendships, which then develop in new ways as people grow, eventually splitting and grafting into separate ecosystems and channels, creating this tree-like structure of connections and networks that extend expontentially and eventually would connect all humankind, perhaps.
The color palette has been bright and cheery, yet the deep notes of burgundy and Paynes gray have been holding the compositions together.
I am also pulling the loose ends of research and drafts together to begin painting my grant project "Giving Birth in Allegany County: Painting the Firsthand accounts of Women" with funding awarded by the SCR regrant program. This work will be shown at the Arts Council of Wyoming County in Perry, NY from November 6 through December 18.
Pieces currently available
The following works are available and are in my studio. If you are interested and would like to take a closer look, arrange a studio visit, or hear more about a piece, please email me at emmymulindwa.art@gmail.com.
Five Days on The Bed
9" x 12" / oil on canvas / pine frame / 2024 / $800
Available
Within a dreamlike, fragmented color field, a postpartum mother rests on a bed with her newborn baby on her chest while caregiver attends her older son.
This painting came out of the tail end of a summer painting frenzy following the birth of my second child in 2024. He was my first out of hospital birth and it had seemed as if the whole world had exploded. It cracked me wide open and left me grappling with 1) the experience itself, which is a remarkable, dramatic story, 2) a new sense of amazement at what women's bodies are capable of and 3) understanding my life at that point in time: as a mother, as a wife, as an artist, as a Christian.
This painting, finished in late summer in September 2024, is the calm, refined resolution to the expressive, boundless undertaking to process through my inquiries.
Begin Anew
16" x 20" / oil on canvas / pine frame / 2024 / $800
Available
Like the piece above, this painting developed out of a painting frenzy in 2024 to process my second son's birth and postpartum time. It also was painted in late summer, and reflects a refinement in style and message.
In overlapping layers of a maternal form, I depict pregnancy, labor, and postpartum with my son. It's flowy, the way rivers and seasons flow together. I found this season of my life was flowing and changing gradually as I was now a mother of two children. I was faced with the task of understanding my role and seeking to settle on my current reality. As a mother, my body and identity expands and shifts. This painting is an attempt to make sense and portray these beautiful changes.
Diary Entry 05
5.5" x 12" / gouache on paper / unframed / 2024 / $100
Available
This painting is set within a wider series entitled "Diary Entries" where I am interested in capturing the sense of self-discovery and accomplishment found whilst journaling. Like writing in a diary, these pieces capture a distinguished time and place. As I painted this entry, I process the day, noting down its idiosyncrasies in hopes to one day notice patterns while seeking clarity of mind and self-improvement.
Works in this series are explorative compositions. I study the language of abstraction: expressing color and form with gouache. Working small and within the margins of night after children are sleeping and pausing when they wake, this series reflects the decisive nature of limitation. "Journaling" when I can, not too worried about the end result, just documenting the day and hoping it will fall into place along the wider patterns of days and weeks.
Diary Entry 07
22" x 15" / gouache on paper / unframed / 2024 / $250
Available
Like the piece above, this painting is set within a wider series entitled "Diary Entries" where I am interested in capturing the sense of self-discovery and accomplishment found whilst journaling.
I challenge I encountered while painting this piece was being frozen in fear of making the wrong mark, feeling uncertain of what form to break, which color to cover, which edge to allow to linger. It was a careful trepidation of getting in my own head and forgetting that the act of journaling is simple: honestly portray the day's events and your experience within your current point of view. Nothing more is expected, and the possibility to change your mind and improve is still possible.
Coming to the point of resolution, where the painting finally seems finished, I was struck by how it all came together and the marks I was anxious about making, no longer held such weight, as the choices I made naturally extended into the next gradually developing a careful, equal treatment across the painting.
Prints
