I think there are some amazing female artists that I admire enormously. So, Abramovic, Hepworth, Emin… the list kind of goes on and on. I think people who have found a route for themselves in the art world and are true to what they want to create, I find inspirational.
Q & A
Basic Questions:
1. What’s your name?
Emma Delpech.
2. Where are you from and where are you currently?
I’m a Londoner and I currently live in Kent.
3. What do you do?
I'm an artist and art teacher.
4. What was your dream as a child and what is your dream now? Has it changed?
As a very young child, I wanted to be a primary school teacher. As I got older, I decided that I wanted to be an art teacher. So, from a really young age, I knew I wanted to teach. Now, my dream is to further myself as an artist.
Specific Questions:
1. What drives you to do what you do?
Instinct? I think it's very natural for most creative people. There is a kind of urgency about making and there's a natural kind of need to be creative. I think that has been highlighted throughout the lockdowns when I made a massive cardboard castle for my cats. I mean, how silly but I think the need to make is just instinctive.
2. Are other forms of art/ expression of interest to you? If so, which ones and why?
Every form of it. So, my degree, as I said, was ‘art for community’ and it didn't mean specialising in any particular field. So, it was really broad and I was able to do ceramics, printmaking, painting, and photography. I was talking to my year nine students recently and reminded them that if this is their last art lesson, they’ve got to remember that art plays out in all sorts of different ways. Creativity can be seen in how you do your makeup, how you style your hair, or how you arrange your bookshelves, even though you're not necessarily thinking of it as “art”. At the same time, I love installation art. I love it when I see something that challenges what I think. I remember going to an art exhibition and seeing just a windowpane shattered on the floor and a note alongside that said “do not touch”. I remember my instinctive response then was, “are you kidding me?” Like, they've just shattered a window on the floor. So, I look back and think I had a restricted, judgemental view of creativity then. Now, I'm much more open to everything. You know, I really embrace conceptual art in a way I definitely didn't when I was younger. So, I really enjoy getting into conversations with students where they're questioning the validity of a piece. A statement you often hear is “I could’ve done that!” or “a five-year-old could’ve done that!” I think that's a really dynamic and interesting conversation to have with students. It reminds me of how I used to view art.
3. How has art emotionally impacted you?
So, I think art is always emotional. I think if you go to an exhibition, if you're not moved, you're probably not looking. Then, in terms of making art, I effectively wear my heart on my sleeve into my paintbrush, or whatever, you know, they're very, I made some very aggressive ceramics pieces, which were in response to lots of political things that were going on in the world that I despised and could not understand. So, there was a lot of breaking and smashing and rebuilding. It's such an obvious narrative looking back at it but I think that breaking and reconstructing and trying to make something good out of something broken was me dealing with what I couldn't change in the world.
4. To what extent can art impact culture?
So, I think art is at the core of culture. Art extends beyond language: it embraces everyone but also pushes boundaries. Art can be used to challenge the status quo. Then, the result makes us question what we think is acceptable or not acceptable, and tests people in terms of their perception. I think narrative contemporary art particularly makes people question what’s going on in the world. There's a lot of overlap between activism and art. Oh, I also remember when I went to an exhibition where it said: “please do touch”. So, you know, people who couldn't see were allowed to touch it and still engage in the artwork. I just thought that was such a beautiful thing to do. I think I am really conscious of that with the sculptures I am making now, thinking about what the response would be from someone who couldn't see it, but who could feel it.
5. Who is your biggest role model?
I'm not very good at narrowing it down to one person. I think there are some amazing female artists that I admire enormously. So, Abramovic, Hepworth, Emin… the list kind of goes on and on. I think people who have found a route for themselves in the art world and are true to what they want to create, I find inspirational.
6. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Living by the sea, painting, and sculpting every day, and probably still involved in education in some form. My university degree was called ‘art for community’ and I really liked that it brought communities together to make pieces for public art spaces. So, I feel like that's something that I can still give to communities and whether that's working with primary school students, obviously secondary school students, which is my career, or working at the hospice with groups or working to produce a mural for an environment. I feel like that's something I can keep doing, whether I'm in education or not, but I do love being an educator. I think one of the things I love about being an art teacher is helping someone realise their own artistic dreams and goals which runs parallel to the joy of making something myself.
5. What challenges have you faced so far in your career?
It's challenging to have a full-time career in education and be an artist. I think the majority of my friends who are very successful in their careers as artists do it full-time. I have been a teacher since I was 21 and it means your time is dedicated to your students. There's much less time, I think, to be successful in art and only part of that is making good art. A lot of it is about finding the market, finding your place in it, meeting the right people, making acquaintances, moving in the right circles, spending lots of time on your social media presence and so on.
6. Are there specific obstacles you think female artists face?
So, I think there is a certain expectation people still put on mothers. I know a lot of brilliant artists who've pretty much put their careers on hold because of that. I find artists like Jenny Saville who’ve produced so much work whilst raising her kids absolutely phenomenal. Besides, I also know far too many brilliant women artists that don't have representation. For a ridiculously long time, most art galleries have just been full of men's art and female representation wasn't there. Thankfully, this is an issue a lot of contemporary curators are addressing but I think there still needs more improvement.
7. What are specific ways the art industry can improve to become more inclusive?
Having more women in top positions and women as curators, so we can get that equal representation I was talking about. I feel that this is happening and we are heading in the right direction.
8. Like when you talk about, like representation and stuff, what do you think about like positive discrimination and like people saying, like, if someone a person of colour, like a woman, or like an LGBTQ+ person, like, wins an award, and they say, Oh, I only won an award, because now people want to seem progressive, and they've only won an award because they're queer?
Yeah, it makes me so cross. I think that view is delusional because it’s just looking for a reason why the white man hasn't won. I think, you know, that the art world needs to make sure it is actively including everyone. Whether people win, you know, that's not meant to be political. That shouldn't be political. It should be that they are the person who should have won.