Emma Saul

My work is experimental paintings and ceramics based on landscapes and our collective connection to the land. I want to explore our emotional connection to the earth, what feelings it inspires and what draws us to a landscape. What is it about the ocean that draws us in or invites adventure, or makes us feel small in comparison? Why do certain places make us happy or lonely or calm? Why do we react so viscerally to certain places? Part of this is about stories and the collective consciousness that connects us to the land, ancestral connections to a place that travel through generations, folklore and tales that try to explain our connections, our draw to the earth as a home. It’s not enough to say that nature inspires me, I want to connect to the spirit of a place and if I can show that connection, I hope it can connect to others too.
I am a Northamptonshire artist, but I trained in creative arts and printmaking at Bath Spa University, graduating in 2002. I love experimenting with new media and methods to keep my work spontaneous. I have never been one for keeping a sketchbook. I love working straight onto a canvas, paper, wood or clay. I don't want to reproduce something I have produced before. It is the unplanned, the unexpected outcomes in my work that I love the most, the things you can't practice, the happy accidents you can never recreate.
For the last few years I have discovered a new obsession in ceramics and have developed a small pottery studio next to my painting studio, creating rustic hand built ceramics that celebrate the landscape they were forged from, playing with local clays and natural glazes and discovering even more endless possibilities in this medium.