Emma Finneran refers to herself as a painter, yet she also refers to herself as a designer, scavenger and half-baked sculptor. Her sources of inspiration include fashion, rubbish, female authors, Lismore, private inner-worlds, soul music, and so on. The unexceptional in everyday life is central to Finneran’s work – as a disaster or a glimmer of hope – for in her case, the things cast aside are what she reveres most. Starting almost always with a marked surface, Finneran’s works evolve as an intuitive response to the marks and characteristics inherent to the materials she finds utilising a diverse multitude of textiles – some aesthetic, some utilitarian, most discarded, their use-value depleted – Finneran’s works engage with how different materials reflect on notions of what is exceptional versus unexceptional.

Emma Finneran currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia. She completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, 2014. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Australia and Hong Kong, and recent solo exhibitions include at Chalk Horse Gallery, Sydney and Ideas Platform, Artspace, Sydney. Finneran has been awarded two scholarships from Art Incubator (2016 & 2017) and was awarded a scholarship to study at Ècole Supérieure d’Art et Design, Saint-Ètienne, France in 2013.