EMMA PAPWORTH
  • sculptures
  • reliefs
  • drawings
  • info
    • statement
    • contact
  • .
  • sculptures
  • reliefs
  • drawings
  • info
    • statement
    • contact
  • .

Drawing influence from elements of twentieth century architecture, modern cityscape and
industrial production, I make sculptures and installations that look curiously at the urban
spaces we inhabit.
The production of my sculptures, revolve around ‘drifts’ taken around cities. Like a
scavenger on a mission to extract essential sustenance, I collect and reference
architectural forms and materials, sifting through demolished buildings and industrial heaps
to reformulate the discarded remains of modern culture.
My work is concerned with urban spaces and the effect it has on those that inhabit them.
Concrete and artificial building materials are symbolic of an urban life that drifts towards a
distancing and de-sensualisation of the human relation to reality. The growing experience of
alienation, detachment and solitude in the world today seems to point towards a privileging
of sight over the other senses, leaving the body and other senses homeless. The materials
used present their unyielding surfaces without conveying their material essence or age
neglecting the dimension of time.
The work serves as imaginary artefacts. Elements of classical architecture, modern
cityscape, geometry and archaeological finds are re-formulated in order to question
preconceived ideas relating to architecture, the body, and time. The work links to a sense of
fragmentation and a distancing of a human relation to reality. In the essay Part Object Part
Sculpture Rosalind Kraus discusses the holistic nature of modern sculpture as being born
out of classical archaeology, ‘the unearthing of sculptural fragments of previous whole
bodies(…)I am interested in how this suggests a relationship between the detached image
of the ‘self’ and disconnection from its situational and spatial existence.

studio@emmapapworth.com

07809755939
  • sculptures
  • reliefs
  • drawings
  • info
    • statement
    • contact
  • .