Epaulet

Abandon

Program Overview

"Color and texture are hugely important in my work. Applied appropriately, they can actually elicit a visceral response from the viewer," says Emily Page, a California-born, Virginia-raised artist.

Emily Page celebrates the life of her grandmother and mentor Beatrice Page with thirty new works on canvas and copper. "She was an extremely creative person and encouraged my creativity, cheering me on at every turn," Page says. As a young dancer, Beatrice Page performed with the celebrated dance team of Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis. When Page left dance to raise her family, she began writing and teaching dance classes. Her widely sought after novel, The Bracelet, published by Bobbs-Merrill is now a collector's item. Beatrice Page died in 2005, leaving her incredible legacy to her family and to the world, a body of work that has inspired hundreds of dancers and writers.

The Quickening, a name taken from one of Beatrice Page's manuscripts, is part of a larger collection created by Emily Page called Thanatology. "The collection features one painting for each significant person in my life who has died." A sort of self prescribed art therapy, Thanatology works are bold and brooding, balancing power and anger with movement and shape. The Quickening, although expressive of Page's emotions, is more of a celebration with layers of joyful colors and fluid textures. The Soulful Arts Dance Academy in St. Petersburg provided the models for each of the pieces presented in The Quickening. Academy students, age 11-17 were asked to come up with three dance poses and give them each a name. One pose from each of the students was photographed and then the pose was painted on canvas or copper. "It is the dancer that gives life to a pose. For this show, it was important that the kids named their poses, and thus named the paintings."

About the Artist

Page began experimenting with different brushwork and palette knife work, scraping and overlaying, from the very beginning. At Wake Forest University in North Carolina, she honed her skills and graduated with honors with a BA in visual arts. "I learned to work in a number of media, including sculpture and photography, but my passion has always been painting. I love working with oil paint simply for the richness of it. It just feels luxurious. And it affords such workability and durability. No other medium matches it. I enjoy branching out and working with unconventional mediums and surfaces from time to time,
but I'm always drawn back to oils."

With such an expressive style, Page points to a wide array of artists as her inspiration, including Edgar Degas, Artemesia Gentileschi, Lucien Freud, Eva Hesse and Robert Maplethorpe. "I love artists who aren't afraid of color. I love artists who are as drawn as I am to how weird and wonderful the human body is. And I love artists who create emotion through texture."

At Wake Forest, Page had the distinction of becoming the first student ever chosen by the school to have her thesis project purchased.

When she graduated from college, Page moved to Washington, D.C. for a year and taught at the prestigious school, Sidwell Friends, but quickly grew tired of the cold winters. Upon moving to Florida, she picked up where she had left off, working at her art, and simultaneously pursuing a career in acting. "Basically I'm good at everything that's hard to make a living doing," she says with a wry grin.

Page now lives and paints in St. Petersburg, FL.

Learn More >

Program Date & Time

Exhibit
12/01/06 - 12/16/06
Tuesday - Saturday
12:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Opening Night
12/01/06
Friday
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm


Admission

Free admission. Donations appreciated.