Emma Prempeh

Emma Prempeh (born 1996) London. Lives and works in London. She is a painter. Quotes It’s the experience of so many diaspora kids to not really know where you belong. You can say it’s cliché but I don’t think it is. Being able to take my mum back to Saint Vincent is my greatest achievement,She hadn’t been back home since she was 16. The isolation I was feeling is there in the project but only a little bit. My mum isn’t creative and my dad doesn’t draw so I’ve always wondered where it came from, But since we were little there has always been creativity in the house and it was supported. When I was 16, I repainted my room and it took five layers of paint to cover up the shine in her eyes. I met lots of abstract artists at the RCA and I learned how to be looser with things like background, I don’t need to completely fill out all the details. I don’t actually decide, ‘Oh I want to paint this’ ahead of time. I just take pictures and document things, It’s when I look at it after that I decide what can go on to become a painting. As much as the work is asking, ‘What is home?’ I know that I have always found home in my loved ones: my friends and family. Rising Painter Emma Prempeh Explores Identity and Home in Her Domestic Interiors,October 8 2024 I do feel lonely sometimes being a painter. But I’m an introvert so I don’t mind. I remember back in the 2020 lockdown, everyone wanted to go outside but I just felt like I was in my element. It’s something I’m always going to be fascinated by and will always try to get a hold on. I wanted to form the show around the subject of home. I touch on it sometimes, but I’ve never delved into it properly until now. My mum’s from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, she came to the UK when she was 16. My dad’s from Ghana and my fiancé lives in Uganda, where he’s from, so I’m connected to all these different places. I’ve been trying to get to the source of all the stories my mum told me growing up. She always spoke about ‘back home’. So many people talk about ‘back home’, especially people I’ve met from the diaspora. I like to focus on interior spaces. My figures are usually floating, you don’t know exactly where they are, I’m interested in what makes me feel familiar within an environment, like a curtain or a fabric or a scent. I picked up painting landscapes and realised how important that’s become for me,At the moment, my dad is having this big dispute about land – it’s become a heavy part of our relationship over the past two years. Then recently on a trip to Saint Vincent with my mum, we found out someone had built on her land. Landscape and scenery are so important in reconstructing memories and the stories my mum would tell me about these places, I didn’t think I could paint trees! I remember finishing a landscape painting in three days, I was obsessed with it. I painted it from a photo I took and it felt like I was there in that moment again. It made me realise that it’s not just interior spaces that carry this sense of nostalgia, you can recreate that feeling with the outside world too. Emma Prempeh wants you to feel what you can’t touch, October 1 2025 External Links Category:Painters Category:1996 births