Emma Hall is a designer from Cambridge, England currently living in Lisbon, Portugal. Growing up, Emma spent most of her childhood travelling around Africa, Europe, and Asia. She studied Architecture at Newcastle University between 2010-2013 and worked in practice for almost two years. However, feeling the urge to travel and explore before committing to the field, Emma decided to move to Lisbon. Half Mozambican, she also admired the design culture there, and was already familiar with the architectural offerings having fallen in love with the city as a teenager.
Before moving to Lisbon, Emma had set up an online shop on Creative Market where she sells patterns, fonts, and digital graphics. Having studied Architecture she was able to use design programs such as Illustrator and had developed some drawing skills. Today, she has moved onto creating physical printed goods which she sells on Etsy. She’s able to use her analogue and digital methods to explore mediums such as screen printing, Risograph, and digital prints.
Despite this, Emma still feels like she is learning to become a designer and artist; “I still consider myself a student. Having never attended Art school I almost created my own foundation. I started with video tutorials exploring Linocut and digital methods on Illustrator, then attended woodwork and screen printing courses. Now I dabble in Risograph and I’m trying to improve my painting skills. I’m not sure if it’s something to admit in the professional sphere but I think a lot of self-taught artists navigate their practice in this way. If anything it keeps things fun, allowing myself to experiment.”
Her current work explores the artistic language of vernacular African painting found on houses. She creates these abstract pieces digitally, but uses mark making in ink to generate more organic forms when necessary. Emma’s past work has been similarly intuitive, although she has also created pieces which draw more directly from nature.
Looking to the future, Emma is keen to continue exploring more experimental mediums such as screen printing and Risograph; “When I first started, my images were quite simple. I didn’t utilize the overlapping of colours or the textures of different mediums outside of ink and digital methods. I’d like to create something perhaps with crayon or pencil.”
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