Alyse Emanuel

I am a Minnesota native and a graduate of Hamline University, where I studied Studio Art, Music, and Religion. In addition to painting, I am a drummer and am driven to explore concepts in my work that cross over between the musical and visual art worlds, like rhythm, variation, and time.

I paint landscapes and humanscapes, however, the subject matter of my work is not as important as showing my process of interpreting the rhythms of the visual world around me.  I am interested in exploring time in my work through repetition and shape. By showing the process of creating a painting, such as leaving structural drawing lines and visibly layering the paint, I express my experience of seeing over time.

In my oil paintings, I use tonality to investigate three-dimensional space by creating depth with lights and darks. I also play with leaving areas of blank canvas next to areas of paint, fracturing the image and causing a confusion between figure and ground. This can create a sense of both flatness and depth, making background and subject appear to shift back and forth. It also draws attention to the abstract quality of paint rather than the representation of objects. By emphasizing the importance of all parts of an image and de-emphasizing object labels, like “arm” or “tree”, I aim to express a universal, underlying unity that I feel is strongly present in all things.

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Alyse Emanuel is open on Sunday of Art-A-Whirl weekend.