Walking Bainggug: Emma Stuart

Emma Stuart paints the Australian landscape from the experience of bush walking to capture the sensation of being on country.

With evocative brushstrokes and luminous colour, Emma captures the liminal shift between light and shade, between what is revealed and what is hidden, between the point of focus and distorted peripheries. Her painting technique is precise yet free as she confidently depicts the places that she knows well. Each tree is captured as personality with close attention to colour and form, drawing the viewer in and then through to the surrounding terrain.

Emma illustrates the joy of being in nature and how it is inherently nurturing. Her paintings transport the viewer to feel almost like being there. "I want the viewer to feel as immersed as you feel when you are on a walking track, the path under your feet, the trees and foliage above you and next to you, the distant valleys and mountains. I’m particularly interested in the personalities of the individual tree and its journeys through the different seasons and conditions bared upon it by the Australian climate."

Embedded in Emma’s artworks is a deep respect for country and the acknowledgment of First Nations peoples, an understanding that comes from bush walking and living in many regions and communities. Emma is particularly attuned to the loaded histories that linger on country; “Bainggug is sadly still better known as the ‘Piccaninny,’ a derogatory term. It has been used as a racial and pejorative slur for Aboriginal children of the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. Wherever I paint I am always drawn to the energy of country that is still very palpably aboriginal in energy. At the same time, I always feel conflicted because of what has come to pass in this colonised country.”

Competently painted and impressionistic of the sensibilities of lived experience in the natural environment, Emma Stuart’s paintings take you into her vision to feel the sublime of country.

Emma is currently undertaking a major large-scale commission with Hamilton Gallery to rework and respond to Nicholas Chevalier’s Mount Abrupt c.1864.

Emma Stuart was born in New Zealand and has lived in Melbourne, London, Berlin, Alice Springs and now in Western Victoria. She has exhibited consistently for over a decade in group and solo exhibitions throughout Australia and internationally, including winning awards in the Northern Territory and inclusion in Hidden Arrernte at Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs. She is currently undertaking a major commission. Emma’s paintings are held in private collections in Australia, New Zealand and Germany and recently acquired by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.