Emma MacCallum

MacCallum graduated in Fine Art in Newcastle in 1993, and shortly after took a studio at the Old Library in Cardiff. On its closure she moved to Oriel Canfas in Cardiff joining a group of contemporary artists who share studios, ideas and exhibition space. She has regularly produced work for both solo and mixed exhibitions. Recent travel has taken her to India to teach and to explore.

Her work, using oil on canvas, is concerned with the figure, exploring the idea of painting from the inside out. What lies beneath the skin becoming a starting point or framework from which the image is built. In pursuit of this idea MacCallum spent two months in 1997 studying the 18th Century collection of anatomical waxes at La Specola museum in Florence. Even now her studio is filled with anatomical drawings and diagrams.

" My fascination with anatomy is not with its medical reality but as a means to explore emotional issues, personality and ultimately, of course, our vulnerability."

"I look to create something solid and truthful, to capture the three-dimensional on the two- dimensional plane, a little magic in paint. To build up from bones, to add flesh with paint, emotion and atmosphere with colour, to peel away the layers in a meditative way."