On view 17 September - 5 october at anca gallery:

Emma Beer:
Lady Drag

Even though my work often focuses on the formal qualities of paint, there’s also a clear sense of human presence—our connection to time and space.

I often wonder what painting means today, especially as it exists alongside the digital world. In my work, I try to find a balance between elegance and spontaneity—between control and rawness.

I'm also exploring whether abstract painting can express queer identity. Can abstraction represent queerness? How? I want my practice to explore queerness as a way of making and viewing abstract art, and to question how gender and sexuality shape artistic expression.

The body, like painting or writing, is a tool for expression. So I ask: how do gender and sexuality affect how abstract art is made or seen?

Recently, I’ve been drawn to the relationship between words and images. I’m experimenting with poetry as a way to express abstraction—looking at how abstract writing and visual painterly language relate, and how both can evoke emotion.

Emma Beer has been living and working in Kambri for the past 20 years and is dedicated to a vigorous painting practice and the community of ANCA.

Beer’s practice stretches to the depths and edges of textiles and writing with a painterly bias.

Beer identifies as a queer female artist who can be placed somewhere between colour field painting and abstract minimalism through an Australian lens.

Critical dates
EXHIBITION OPENING: 17 September
ON VIEW: 17 SEptember - 5 october
Artist talk: 20 September 3-4pm
AFL GRand Final Viewing: 27 September, first bounce 2:30 in the gallery

ANCA acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which we live, learn and work,
the Ngunnawal people. We also recognise the Ngambri, Ngarigu people who traded, traveled through and have connections with this land. We pay our respects to all Custodians of Country and Elders, past,
present and emerging, throughout all lands, waters and territories.