Artist Statement Emily Brodrick’s work inhabits the space between stereotypical and gendered definitions of textile crafts and visual art because she often uses crochet and knitting, historically female skillsets, to create fine art in a historically male dominated field. Formally, her work references living organisms and it is through these tactile and approachable mediums as well as color, that she gives a graspable consciousness to creatures whose differences from us often translate to them being considered mindless or inanimate. To expand on that accessibility, the organism that inspired the form or function of the piece often becomes its title. Each time the work is installed it can look largely different because just as organisms evolve to a new niche, Emily adapts her work to respond to the architecture of the new space. Hanging or branching her pieces over the areas between architectural spaces, she uses physical and aesthetic boundaries to highlight and thus question our cultural boundaries between textiles and fine art.
