Bio:

Emma Stevenson Cowan received her BFA and MS in Art and Design Education from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, with a concentration in painting and art history. After graduation, she moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to became a full time art teacher in an alternative charter school specializing in at-risk youth. Emma returned to work in her hometown of Bethesda, Maryland at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart as a high school studio art teacher. During this time Emma revisited her passion for painting. She had her first solo show in the Park View Gallery at Glen Echo Park in 2018 and has since continued to paint. Emma recently returned to the Park View Gallery for a second solo show highlighting a shift to landscape painting. Emma is currently teaching art at the Washington Episcopal School, making art with her two children, husband and black lab in Silver Spring, and volunteering at Mary House in Washington DC.

You can see more of Emma’s Art Education work at: https://emmateachesart.com/

Artist Statement:

My current body of work incorporates texture and textual memories to create paintings that long for the past, and celebrate the power of memory. I use a mixture of layered color blocking and imagined fonts inspired by old signage. I paint memories. I associate colors with my recollections and use them as a foundation for the piece. Simultaneously, I will let my approbation for vintage aesthetics in advertising and graphic design guide me in recreating a memory through text. These bits of text reference a sign or a place I want to remember. The imperfection of my lines are like the memories themselves in their discoloration. In creating these works of art I have come to appreciate hand painted lettering an art form in itself, and a craft I deeply admire. Through my references to homespun signage mixed with color studies I attempt to fuse commercial and high art.