ABOUT EMMA BLENCOWE

 Emma Blencowe is an artist living in between Reading in the United Kingdom and Cape Town, South Africa. Blencowe’s work focuses on the body, particularly the fat womxn’s body. She endeavors to bring focus to these bodies and celebrate them through her use of bright colours and her reference of ritual and ceremony, which can both uplift and oppress. Blencowes work focuses on these contradictions, and the contradictions that exist when you inhabit a body that is viewed as abject and othered by the society it survives in. 

Blencowe graduated from Michaelis School of Fine Art at the end of 2019. She majored in painting, but also studied photography during her degree. Post-Michaelis she began experimenting with digital painting techniques and how to combine these with her traditional food colouring paintings. Currently, Blencowe works mostly with food colouring on paper in various sizes. Food colouring represents the idea of sustenance, which nourishes us and builds our bodies, as well as referencing the fact that food colouring is derived from petroleum and is artificial, unnatural and potentially toxic to us. 

Blencowe’s work is a statement about the treatment of ‘other’/different bodies and how we should move to a more accepting world that celebrates all bodies, including those of fat womxn. In an utopian world, Blencowe would want to see a world which holds us accountable for our actions, allows us to grow, and is accepting and respectful of all bodies, celebrating their differences instead of dividing us. 

Selected Group Exhibitions 

2020 ‘FEMINIST UTOPIA’ curated by Anelisa Mangcu, EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, South Africa 

2020 Margins Womxn’s Month Group Show, Eclectica Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa 

2019 Michaelis Graduate Exhibition, Michaelis School of Fine Art, Cape Town, South Africa 

2018 September First Thursday’s Group Exhibition, Avital Lang Gallery and Studio, Cape Town, South Africa 

Grants & Awards 

2018 Art and Theory Class Medal, awarded by Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town 

Education 

2020 Digital Illustration Short Course at the University of Arts London, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design 

2020 Concept Art Short Course at the Academy of Digital Arts, Friends of Design Cape Town

2019 Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town 

2019 Photoshop Short Course at the Academy of Digital Arts, Friends of Design Cape Town