Wilcock’s work vibrates with unbridled fervor, anxiety, and joy, emerging from his subconscious. His psychologically charged portraits are frozen in a state of becoming with imagined characters, represented in vibrant oil and acrylic paintings, often pinned to the canvas with needle and black thread. These entangled figures transform into one another or transform into a corporeal metropolis of moving gears, trembling satellites, and towering skyscrapers. Working intuitively, Wilcock gently captures his diverse idiosyncratic characters as they drift into unattainable and unrecognizable dystopian worlds.

Wilcock, an Australian expat who moved to London when she was twelve, is constantly inventing and reinventing a sense of place. Their work becomes a home to return to. Wilcock’s gestural pen and ink drawings are sprinkled with many forms of world-making. There are figures that become their environment (a head with octagonal eyes becomes a winding road in the desert) and those that find a sense of place within themselves (a girl with a house for a heart, balancing one-window houses with fragile antennae sticking out of her head). However, other figures float in or through empty space, clinging to each other or alone in fluid motion, shedding their past along the way.

Wilcock’s work contains a tension between psychological escapism and the feeling of return. His subjects find their newest form in the more populated world of his lithographic prints. Unlike Wilcock’s drawings, the monochromatic compositions of these prints are more elaborate and complex, as mysterious faces emerge from the darkness. Faces with bulging eyes appear from Wilcock’s subconscious as we are invited to take a step forward into the delicate realm of the artist.

Emily Wilcock (b. 2001, Brisbane) is a British-Australian artist who is in her final year of Fine Arts studies at Camberwell College of Arts. Recent exhibitions include Peculiar Child, Asylum Chapel, London (2023) and Half Way, A.P.T. Gallery, London (2022). Delicate Kingdom en Incubator 23 es la primera exposición individual de Emily Wilcock.

Text by Angelica Jopling on the occasion of the Emily Wilcock exhibition at Incubator, London.

STATEMENT

“My hand-stitched paintings have evolved from my line drawings.

The delicate and soft structures of eyelashes, hair, and fabric help to soothe the tension held within their bodies. Every frantic hand gesture and every fleeting glance are delicately and calmly linked with fine threads. The background colors create an environment and carry a subtle palette of emotions. I want these paintings to tremble and vibrate with the fear and excitement of being alive.”

Artist Biography:

Solo Show

5th April 2023 ‘Delicate Kingdom’ Incubator 2 Chiltern Street London.

Group Shows

9th June 2023 Degree show ‘Camberwell College of Arts Painting 2023’ 45-65 Peckham Road SE5 8UF

21st February 2023 ‘Ephemera’ Camberwell College of Art, Camberwell, London

9th February 2023 ‘Peculiar Child’ Asylum Chapel, Caroline Gardens, London

4th February 2023, ‘Third Year Painting Exhibition: Camberwell College of Art” Southwark Park Galleries, 1 Park Approach,

Southwark Park, London

31st May 2022 ‘Open Call’ Liliya Art Gallery, 158 Putney High Street, London

22nd April 2022 ‘[ANTI] STATIC’ The Golden Anchor, 16 Evelina Road, Nunhead, London

17th February ‘Half Way’ A.P.T Gallery, 6 Creekside, Deptford, London

Interviews

15th February 2023 ‘In the Studio With Emily Wilcock’ Othy Jasper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=PAAaYjHgBR9LbQViR_TCyP2ASYg34bBIciAe4vn7Ym8d8aWgX_6aDRD_Z7CCI&v=selZX

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