Image: Emma Coulter, hover, 2025, synthetic polymer paint on linen, 153 x 244 cm

With a practice spanning two decades, Emma Coulter presents her upcoming exhitbion, superimposition, at James Makin Gallery, Naarm/Melbourne. Her practice blurs the boundaries between mediums and forms, questioning the hierarchies of materials, art-making methods, and functional art. Through her work, she explores the intersections of architecture, sculpture, and painting, often beginning with drawing and collage. Using a process of deconstruction and reconstruction, Coulter arrives at spatial propositions, carefully considering the arrangement of colour, geometry, and form.

Her latest body of work investigates the idea of multiplicity, and questions fixed hierarchal notions beyond classical medium and discipline specific categories. She is interested in challenging preconceived ideas about colour, and its’ association with ideas about gender, choosing to work in the genre of hard-edge abstraction, whilst erasing the possibilities of her work being about the soft and feminine. Working in the expanded field, Coulter has created her own colour-based abstract language, and a sense of rigour which she applies across all forms of her practice.

Coulter holds a Master of Contemporary Art from the Victorian College of the Arts (2015), a Bachelor of Built  Environment (2000), and a Bachelor of Visual Arts (1998) from Queensland University of Technology. She has held over 17 solo exhibitions, participated in over 40 group exhibitions, and completed over 30 site-specific installations, including major public art commissions in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Coffs Harbour. Her work is held in collections including Artbank, the City of Melbourne, and QUT Art Museum.

Opening event: Saturday 3 May, 2–4pm