A Solo Exhibition by Emma Berkery

An exhibition of new paintings by artist Emma Berkery exploring the psychology of hope and its role in our will to live. Inspired by her father’s eternal optimism, the artist investigates the meaning and impact of hope in the context of our increasingly tumultuous world.

Berkery’s arts practice is rooted in, and frequently references, the art historical movements of Colour-Field and Abstract Expressionism. The combined influence of these two movements results in a unique style of abstraction, which the artist uses as the vehicle to process, repackage and reflect back to the viewer her experience of the world. Resisting singular interpretation, the paintings act as conversations and explorations of the materiality of paint with powerfully evocative colour combinations. For the viewer, they both depict and create experiences. Berkery paints with a process led methodology, incorporating a symbolic palette with fluid organic forms, collocated with conscious and subconscious structure and gesture.

Berkery’s gestural approach to mark-making with its texture, movement and depth is mixed with areas of close to flat single colour, evoking emotional landscapes and creating an artistic language both abstract and unique.

Based in Belfast since 2004, Emma Berkery completed her Masters in painting in 2006 with Ulster University. Since then she has been immersed in the arts sector in Northern Ireland working as a practicing artist, creative consultant, evaluator and educator. Berkery currently holds a long-term associate artist residency with Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich, an arts centre in West Belfast, and is represented by SO Fine Art Editions in Dublin, and The Nicholas Gallery in Belfast. She exhibits regularly throughout Ireland with recent solo exhibitions in 2022 and 2021 in Belfast and is the recipient of several Arts Council of Northern Ireland Funding Awards.