Being raised by my father after my mother’s death, my work centres around the marks left behind in the hollow of childhood grief and their lasting impact sustained on identity.
Investigating loss, the intangible, and emotional awareness, my works ask the questions; what do we see about ourselves in others? What do others see about themselves in us? What are we really, if anything, outside of these mirages?
These questions are considered through the nature of the material keepsake; the notion of a personal significance tied up within our posthumous existence. A selfhood retained within our material choices, born out of care and of love; that somehow outlives us.
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Emma Ducharme is a Toronto/Tkarón:to based artist. Ducharme graduated with a BFA in Drawing & Painting from OCAD University in 2021, and recently presented works in the Untapped section at the Artist Project, at the Latcham Art Centre, and at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. Her work seeks to expand our perspectives on identity beyond merely the representational.
Through her often playful use of colour and stern materiality, Ducharme invites a larger questioning on the illusory nature of life and being; on the ways in which what we see is not always what it seems.
With her curvilinear geometric wall sculptures, Ducharme invokes conversations around the intricacies of materiality, femininity, and identity; musing on their delicate balance.
