Artist Statement

After rummaging through a Parisian flea market stall, I was stunned to find in my hands a pile of old vintage photographs. These photos had been cast off and forgotten by their subjects, but it seemed to me that they each had a story to tell. I brought them home to Tennessee, and brought each photo back to life, taking 3" x 3" images and blowing them up, some to 6' x 6' canvases. With paint and color and size, it was as if I was able to breathe new life into what had once been discarded and left.   

Don't we all have parts of our own life, that if we could choose, we'd throw to the curb, or discard at the flea market? However, these layers of history and experiences in our own lives, might be the very things that illumune and make our best art. These parts of our story are the underground strokes that allow new life to breathe through us.  -Emily O

I am always looking for inspiration, whether while reading a classic aloud to my children, heading to far and distant places, working in our large and weedy garden, or rummaging through someone else's cast offs.