Emily Pettigrew

A representational painter, whose work is distinguished by sparseness, subtlety, and timelessness, Emily Pettigrew’s pictures emanate a quiet reverence for both history and nature. She has exhibited extensively in galleries in New York City as well as showing at Museums such as the Kunstmuseum Schloss Derneberg, Germany and the Fenimore Art Museum, New York.

Currently based in the Catskill Mountains, Pettigrew’s subject matter has become increasingly imbued with the regional history of the area and points to themes of the "growing block universe" and the almost tangible presence of past time.

In Conversation with Friday Arts

Friday Arts

Tell us about your practice and process.

Emily Pettigrew

I am an acrylic painter, living and working in the Catskill mountains of New York. My process almost always involves going out and experiencing place before translating that particular experience into a painting.

What themes/ideas do you find yourself continuing to return to over time?

The theme of past time, and how the record of peoples past interactions with the landscape is preserved and feels almost accessible in certain special places.

Your work can be spare, almost minimal. Can you speak about the idea of stripping things away?

I find by removing what isn't significant, even realistic images become symbols of things which have a greater applicability and resonance. I like to unmoor my images from time-period by eliminating references that are easily dateable in order to convey that feeling I experience in particular landscapes and settings.

Can you speak about the idea of spaces holding different times or histories?

I have a very strong feeling that in certain places past time is quite tangible and almost accessible.

My work often deals with the "ghost," if you will, of past time and history. The nature writer Robert Macfarlane says, "Geography and history are consubstantial . . . history issues from geography in the same way water issues from a spring."

Are there artists who you think your work is in conversation with?

I am from Maine, and there's a lot of painters in who's work I can see Maine's landscape as having an impact in the same way it has affected visual language. To name a few: Will Barnet, Alex Katz, Andrew Wyeth, Lois Dodd . . .

What are your thoughts on the role of art and artists today, at this particular moment in time?

I'm a proponent of earnestness in art. I like artists that are exploring what they value, rather than making sardonic work that becomes heavily self-referential and ironic.