Flora

Emma Somerset Davis 
Madeleine Jacob

Books, cups, posies, painted cloth, hand mirrors, silk, organza, anemones, hairclips. These objects are the constituent parts of Emma Somerset Davis’ fifth show at The Anna Lovely Gallery, now showing with her daughter and fellow painter Madeleine Jacob. Both painters’ work investigates place, femininity and the small-scale.

Emma’s work is in oil and gouache painting, dealing with the interstitial space between subject and object. Her figurative gouache paintings document wildflowers kept from walks on the Sussex Downland and Weald, meticulously arranged with domestic objects.  A painted dress depicts moments from walks along the Adur river. Her abstract oil paintings are similarly attenuated to strong, inarticulable feeling, registering their shape and colour like television static on canvas. 

Emma Somerset Davis attended Royal College of Art, Chelsea College of Art and Camberwell School of Art (Painting). She is interested in how painting explores and depicts feminine performativity. Before establishing her independent painting practice, she worked as lead artist in 1990s experimental art/architecture collective FAT, developing their renowned postmodernist artworks. She lives and works in West Sussex. Her work is held in many private and public collections.