Emma Coleman Jones
Drawing
Emma is an Oxford-based artist whose work focuses on trees within the landscape. Her field sketches, are light, instinctive responses to the natural world, completed in charcoal, chalk and pencil. Working outside throughout the year, she explores the form, character and grouping of trees as well as capturing the changing light, weather and mood through the seasons.
Emma’s work centres around close observation and is informed by her background as a biologist. Her practice is characterised by taking note - focusing on what is important or significant in the moment - and by an openness to the possibilities of a landscape. Rarely leaving home without a sketchbook, she is able to respond to the serendipitous burst of sun or gust of wind which can animate a familiar place in unexpected ways. Admirers of her drawings comment on the way in which they capture the spirit of place and replicate the experience of being there.
The symbiotic relationship between Emma’s creative and academic interests underpins her work as an educator. Sharing her passion for natural history in school and community projects, she uses observational drawing as a means of understanding and appreciating the beauty and diversity of living things. Holding and drawing a twig or standing beneath an ancient tree can thus be the starting point for conversations about structure, function, resilience and the interconnectedness of natural systems.
Trees, as Emma says, are markers of time, place and season. Through her creative responses she encourages us to look at them more closely, to consider their significance in our lives, to take note.
