Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Elisa Halpern.
Emily Elisa, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am a curious person and have always enjoyed making things with my hands. However, my route to becoming an artist has been circuitous. As I’m very tall, strong and competitive, I was fast-tracked into sports. My first love was riding and dressage. Then basketball. It monopolized my attention for many years: high school and college basketball, the Canadian National Basketball Team, and then professional basketball in Germany, Australia, and Switzerland. When my sports career ended, I realized that I didn’t want to go to law school, for which my undergraduate degree in criminology had prepared me. Instead on an unexpected visit to New York City, I decided to stay and apply to art school. It turned out to be my best and defining decision. I was accepted into the painting program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where I thrived. After getting my BFA, I moved to San Diego for an MFA program in painting at San Diego State University. Upon graduation, I moved my studio to a fantastic arts community near downtown Los Angeles and have been there making work ever since.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My unstructured creative process has been my biggest challenge. While I’m impressed with how artists like Henry Darger escaped into a fantastical world with specific characters and a narrative, my process is much more intuitive and based on stream of consciousness. Of course, an occasional creative block is an artist’s occupational hazard, but for me, when my creativity isn’t flowing, it grinds my work to a halt. I simply can’t force the work. But when I can work freely and without the inhibition of self-judgement, in love with the materials and connected to my unconscious, I produce my most solid paintings.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I create paintings that reflect my feelings about contemporary events, and life in downtown Los Angeles, such as climate change, homelessness, addiction, reproductive rights, and racism. These are all constant topics in the news, and sometimes can be seen right outside my window. Occasionally, for a break from these weighty subjects, I paint horses, a throwback from my childhood.
I use bold lines and flattened shapes in pared-down compositions to capture these raw realities. My creative process is directed but improvisational, incorporating the use of intentional and accidental mark-making. My intent is to integrate the physicality of the paint with the content. I use all of these techniques to communicate the emotions I feel at the moment.
Given the way I produce work, I’ve been fortunate to have the support of people who believe in me. I also feel incredibly lucky to live and work in an arts community. Whenever I need a break from isolation, heading over to the “watering hole” on campus invariably means I’ll run into like-minded friends who are at least as familiar with the challenges of art making as I am. Just being in Los Angeles has also been a lucky move. The city is a hub of artistic activity with great galleries, museums and all manner of artist friends.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.emilyelisahalpern.com
- Instagram: emilyelisahalpern
Image Credits
Portrait by Mike Moroz
