Emma Mulrooney is a figurative painter whose practice honours the strange and tragic wonder of selfhood. Her work explores the mysteries of the human psyche and the body’s capacity to express that which resists language. Mulrooney’s humanoid creatures exist in transitional states of becoming, often embodying themes of spiritual longing, isolation, gender identity, and human connection. Dwelling within an interplay of psychological vulnerability and bestial grit, each subject carries their own personal weight of experience. Emphasising the body as a sacred well of indisputable worth, Mulrooney’s figures are imbued with an atmospheric charge that align them with the elements of the natural world.

Her experimental painting process means that each work holds within it a residue of transformation. It is this approach that allows Mulrooney to develop a deeper understanding of the image and subject matter, as it gradually reveals itself through countless additions and subtractions of paint layers. She also draws significant meaning from the transition between the various source material and the work itself. For Mulrooney, it is not about the decoration of an already present image, but rather the potential of what a particular image can conjure in the mind beneath conscious thought. This allows her to maintain an open curiosity towards the unknown and an appreciation of the absurd as a mechanism for self-understanding.
It its through this practice that Mulrooney seeks to uncover something tender and honest amongst all the uncertainty of human experience.