My work is primarily about the process of screen-printing.
Sometimes I work on panels using screen-printing and painting together and have lately been working creating 3D textile prints.
Over the past twenty years interests in my work have combined a fascination with the grotesque and the hybrid (drawn from an interest in antique bestiaries and botanical prints) to animals and the second hand reproduced photographic image.
I have a fascination for animal curiosities, mismatched oddities and genetic mistakes in my work -I draw allusions to these with print concepts- replicate, edition, copy, misprint.
I often work from re appropriated and sourced prints and photographs in which to create my own images.
I attended Auckland University’s Elam School of Fine Arts, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in Printmaking in 1993, before continuing to compete a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting in 2001. The result of my affinity for these dual disciplines is a natural combination of the two that allows me to build multiple layers of colour, pattern and image, all the while seeking to conceal and reveal different elements of the composition.
I live and work in Auckland with my family. I lecture in Visual Arts at the Faculty of Creative Arts, Manukau Institute of Technology, Auckland and continue to exhibit in New Zealand and overseas.
Emma McLellan 