Emma Coulter

Artist Profile

Biography

Working in the expanded field of painting, Emma Coulter, works with colour in a serial way. Through a refined colour palette, Coulter has created her own bold, idiosyncratic, spectrum, which she applies seamlessly across painting, sculpture, site-specific installation and public art, through a reductive, chromo-spatial approach. Founded in the roots of modernist abstraction, minimalism and conceptual art, her works are an investigation into the semantics of colour and form, and the creation of meaning and language through spatial arrangement, colour relationships and context. Coulter’s work navigates cultural structures that consider art’s place in society.

Through Coulter’s series of site-specific works, which the artist names ‘spatial deconstructions’, she astutely extends her painting practice, reinventing architecture to render it a painting and a support structure all at once. Embedded within these works is also the social context of their location, extending the work beyond formal concerns and offering subtle messages to the community. These are conveyed through the perceptual optics of colour sequences.

Following her undergraduate studies in visual art and the built environment at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, 2000, Coulter completed a Master of Contemporary Art at the Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, in painting, sculpture and spatial practice in 2015. Subsequently, Coulter has been awarded numerous grants, prizes, major public art projects, and museum installations, gaining increasing recognition.

Her most recent and notable accolades include the 2021 commission of her most important work to date: a 130-metre-long spatial deconstruction commission in central Melbourne, occupying an entire city block at Melbourne’s most prominent intersection. In the same year she was also the recipient of the biannual Footscray Art Prize (mural category), for her spatial deconstruction work on the Footscray Community Arts Centre facade. 2021 also saw the artists selection as QUT’s fourth Alumni Triennial at QUT Art Museum, with a presentation of sculptures, paintings, process work and a new site-specific intervention – this in acknowledgement of her significant achievements as an artist and alumnis. Coulter was the recipient of the Linden New Art Prize in 2016 and in 2018, following a Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant, was invited to create a new, site-specific work for NewWoman, an exhibition celebrating the work of ground-breaking female artists held at the Museum of Brisbane

2023 will see Coulter achieve significant public artworks in Victoria and NSW as well as present a major solo exhibition ‘infinite systems’, in Melbourne at James Makin Gallery.

Coulter’s works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, at numerous institutional, commercial and artist-run spaces, as well as in situ in the public domain.

BIOGRAPHY

2023 will see Coulter achieve significant public artworks in Victoria and NSW as well as present a major solo exhibition ‘infinite systems’, in Melbourne at James Makin Gallery.

Coulter’s works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, at numerous institutional, commercial and artist-run spaces, as well as in situ in the public domain.

Exhibitions

PUBLIC ART + MUSEUM COMMISSIONS
2023
spatial deconstruction #30 (social fabric), Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria
let them feel the light, Yarilla Place, Coffs Harbour Cultural Centre, Coffs Harbour NSW

2022
Gallery in the Sky, spatial deconstruction #28 (the grid), The Eighth, CREMA constructions, South Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #28 (the grid), The Eighth, Domain Precinct, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #27 (cutout), Burt Healy Pavilion, Malvern East, Melbourne

2021
spatial deconstruction #26 (window intervention), QUT ART MUSEUM, Brisbane
spatial deconstruction #25 (perceptual vortex), Footscray Community Arts Centre, Footscray, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #23 (resilience), City Square, Melbourne for the Metro Tunnel creative program

2020
spatial deconstruction #24 (wrapper), Richmond Town Hall, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #22 (rainbow shelter), Burnett Lane, Brisbane
William Jolly Bridge projection, multichromatic synaesthesia, Brisbane

2019
spatial deconstruction #21 (portals), Dome Gallery, Museum of Brisbane, Brisbane

2018
spatial deconstruction #19 (inversion), Latrobe Art Institute, Bendigo

2016
spatial deconstruction #15 (gemstone with fireplace), LINDEN New Art, Melbourne

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS + INSTALLATIONS

2023
infinite systems, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria

2022
folding forms, James Makin Gallery, Melbourne

2019-20
portals, Dome Gallery, Museum of Brisbane, Brisbane

2019
composites, THIS IS NO FANTASY + dianne tanzer gallery, Melbourne

2018
doppel symmetrie, ADHOC, Bochum, Germany

2017
trace patterns, PALMER Projects, Sydney

2015
chrominance, Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne

2015
chromo-spatial, CHASM, Brooklyn, New York

2014
threshold, five walls projects, Footscray, Melbourne

2013
transposition, pieces of eight, Melbourne

2012
shedding skin, Frankston Arts Centre, Mornington Peninsula

2011
viscerality, Kunstraum Tapir, Friedrichshain, Berlin, Germany
shedding skin, forty five downstairs, Melbourne, Victoria

2009
memory space, Jacob Hoerner Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria

2007
twofold, Jacob Hoerner Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria

2006
Emma Coulter works, Clayton Utz, Riparian Plaza, Brisbane, Queensland

2005
unseen, Fox Galleries, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Queensland

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024
Sydney Contemporary, group show presentation by James Makin Gallery, Carriageworks, Sydney
Pattern Recognition, Hawthorn Town Hall Gallery
Melbourne Art Fair, presented by James Makin Gallery at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, Victoria

2023
New Acquisitions, ANZ gallery, Docklands, Victoria
Arthur Guy Memorial Finalists Exhibition, Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria
Deakin Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, Deakin University Art Gallery, Burwood, Victoria
The art of the metrotunnel, Domain House, Melbourne

2022
Women in Abstraction, ANZ gallery, Melbourne, Victoria

2021
Thinking into being, Alumni Triennial, QUT Art Museum, Brisbane, Qld
Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Woollahra Gallery, Sydney
Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery, Sunshine Coast, Qld
Footscray Art Prize, Footscray Community Arts Centre
Bayside Acquisitive Art Prize, Bayside Gallery, Brighton, Melbourne

2020
Sunshine Coast Art Prize, Caloundra Regional Gallery, Sunshine Coast, Qld
FIVE TEN TWENTY TWENTY, five walls, Footscray

2019
NEW WOMAN, Centenary Exhibition, Museum of Brisbane, Brisbane
Nillumbik Contemporary Art Prize, Montsalvat, Melbourne

2018
support structure, Latrobe Art Institute, Bendigo
Deakin Contemporary Small Sculpture Award, Deakin University Art Gallery, Burwood
WAVE, BSA project space, Byron School of Art, Mullumbimby

2017
9X5NOW, ART150 Historical Exhibition, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, VCA, Melbourne

2017
Mixed tape, PALMER projects, Sydney

2016
Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, Woollahra Council Chambers, Sydney
Linden Art Prize, Linden New Art, St Kilda, Melbourne

2015
VCA masters exhibition, Victorian College of the Arts, St Kilda Rd
faux fair, c3 artspace, The Abbotsford Convent, Abbotsford
colour imperative, Rubicon ARI, North Melbourne, Victoria

2014
marvel, the windsor prize, Hotel Windsor, Melbourne
no werk, trocadero artspace, Footscray, Melbourne
parking lot, VCA gallery, Southbank, Melbourne, Victoria

2013
the hills are alive, Paradise Hills Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria
artmonth emerging artists finalists exhibition, Depot two, Sydney, New South Wales

2012
from paradise, James Makin Gallery, Collingwood, Melbourne, Victoria
studio artists, Paradise Hills Gallery, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria

2011
the space between, Neukölln, Berlin, Germany

OTHER SITE SPECIFIC INSTALLATIONS

2022
spectrum warp #3, Painting commission for Metro Tunnel Collection

2019
spatial deconstruction #20 (barn intervention), Montsalvat, Melbourne

2018
insitu painting #01, (composites), THIS IS NO FANTASY, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #18, (doppel symmetrie), adhocraum, Bochum, Germany
spatial deconstruction #17, (wave), BSA project space, Byron Bay

2017
spatial deconstruction #16, (truncated geometry), PALMER, Sydney

2015
spatial deconstruction #13 and #14, (hood and spectrum), ‘beyond painting’, VCA
spatial deconstruction #12, (warped apex), Anna Pappas Gallery, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #11, (prismatic), CHASM, Brooklyn, New York

2014
spatial deconstruction #10, (collision), Five Walls Projects, Footscray, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #09, (marvel intervention), Hotel Windsor, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #08, (the alter), 17 Wills st,, Art Deco Building, Melbourne CBD
spatial deconstruction #07, (rainbow), VCA open day, VCA, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #06 (equilateral), VCA Gallery, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #05, (cube), Black Hole, VCA, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #04, (vortex), VCA project space, VCA, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #03, (window), VCA studio, VCA, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #02, (pendant), Bracks corridor, VCA, Melbourne
spatial deconstruction #01, (prism), the Cage, VCA, Melbourne
private painting commission, Artesian Investments

2013
installation, pieces of eight facade, Russell Place, Melbourne
private painting commission, domestic space

2012
private painting commission, domestic space

Awards

AWARDS/ PRIZES/ RESIDENCIES

2024
Finalist, Stanthorpe Art Prize
Finalist, Bayside Painting Prize

2023
Finalist, Arthur Guy Memorial Prize
Finalist, Deakin Contempoary Small Sculpture Award

2022
recipient, Creative Victoria, sustaining creative workers grant

2021
winner, Footscray Art Prize (mural category)
finalist, Sunshine Coast Art prize
finalist, Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize
finalist, Bayside Acquisitive Award

2020
finalist, Sunshine Coast Art prize

2019
finalist, Nillumbik Contemporary Art Prize

2018
recipient, Ian Potter Cultural Trust Grant
finalist, Deakin Contemporary Small Sculpture Award

2016
winner, Linden Art Prize, Linden New Art
winner, Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize Viewer’s Choice Award

2015
recipient, Fiona Myer Award for excellence, VCA, University of Melbourne
recipient, NAVA Australian Artists Grant

2014
recipient, Jim Marks Postgraduate Scholarship, VCA, University of Melbourne
recipient, faculty grant, VCA, University of Melbourne

2014
finalist, the Windsor Prize, VCA, Hotel Windsor

2013
finalist, NAB artist award (artmonth Sydney)

2011
takt kunstprojektstraum residency, Friedrichshain, Berlin, Germany

2000
Deans Award for Excellence – Faculty of Built Environment + Engineering
QUT Head of School Award (School of Architecture)

1999
QUT Head of School Award (School of Architecture)

ARTWORKS

Emma Coulter space in motion 2024 synthetic polymer paint on linen 81.5 x 81.5 cm $4,400.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter grids 2024 synthetic polymer paint on linen 167 x 167 cm $12,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter escape from reality 2024 synthetic polymer paint on linen 153 x 153 cm $9,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter cut it out 2024 synthetic polymer paint on linen 153 x 153 cm $9,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter hybrid models for the future 2024 synthetic polymer paint on linen 167 x 167 cm $12,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter shape shift cutout 2024 synthetic polymer paint on linen 152 x 152 cm $9,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter double tuck 2023 enamel on steel 40 x 50 x 35 cm $5,000.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter concentric slip 2023 enamel paint on steel 50 x 58 x 75 cm $6,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter shape shift 2023 synthetic polymer paint on linen 102 x 102 cm $5,500.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter order and systems, synthetic patchwork dreams 2018 synthetic polymer paint on archival gesso board with custom black gloss frame 45 x 39 cm $2,800.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter order and systems, modular design 2018 synthetic polymer paint on archival gesso board with custom black gloss frame 45 x 39 cm $2,800.00 ENQUIRE →
Emma Coulter modular fittings 2018 synthetic polymer paint on archival gesso board with custom blue gloss frame 36 x 36 cm $2,500.00 ENQUIRE →