LIFE UNSTYLED STUDIO PRESENTS ‘UNFINISHED’
SHOP art prints HERE.
In everything I do I embrace imperfection. I strive for it, a paradox I know. In the interiors I design I aim for a comforting sense of ‘undoneness’, a feeling that more is yet to come. In the homeware I buy I search for pieces with signs of wear, items that have already lived a life. For my books I seek out homes that have signs of life, clues about the inhabitants within, the opposite of polished, showroom perfection.
When something is ‘done’ there is no more room for change or growth or possibility. Unfinished - for me - signifies potential, hope, a future where things can evolve and become more beautiful and meaningful with time.
The same is true for my art. My illustrations begin as black ink on paper, my favoured medium. Head down, hunched over a thick pad of paper, the scratch of pen inexplicably soothes my anxiety and quiets my mind. Time and space fall away and I enter that revered place, the zone. Fears and worries vanish. There is no past and no future, just the now.
The five illustrations in my first series began in this way. Black lines on white paper. I thought they were done, after all, they represented the version of me I’d become 18 months into a pandemic. But as my dark mood lifted, I saw that they needed colour after all. Just a bit. I added colour digitally and imperfectly, selecting from a vibrant palette to suit my newly optimistic mood. But I left them intentionally unfinished, a message to a future version of me who might one day want to fill in the rest.
EMILY x