"Compositions in a Minor Key"
 Assemblages by Emily Stuart
January 7 - February 1, 2003

For thirty years Emily Stuart has lived a domestic life in Salem, Oregon, punctuated by several years working for the Oregon Legislature and in the Governor's Office. After raising two children and establishing a home, she returned to what she has always considered her one and true vocation: that of an artist.

In recent years she has concentrated on bringing into material form the visual concepts that emerge from her fertile mind. These concepts find expression in Emily’s large collection of mundane objects, and in the fact that she is a confessed daydreamer. No  matter how much she might prefer to splash paint on canvas with wild abandon, she finds herself arranging objects into meticulous and sometimes odd juxtapositions.

She can't help it, Emily says. Her ancestors were Swiss clock-makers. Here is what Emily Stuart has to say about her work:

"Since childhood my personality has been formed by three influences: A sense of mystery, a sense of beauty and a sense of humor. I can see the impact of these themes in both my life and my art. As I have grown into maturity other themes have emerged -- but one seems to have become preeminent: a need to create order and harmony in a world that seems bent on self-destruction."

"My creative life resonates with a comment I heard recently on radio program. ‘Art is the prism through which we may get a glimpse of the mystery that life presents us. Art gives us the presence of the mystery without revealing the mystery’".

"When people express confusion about the meaning of my art, I tell them that all I am doing is making compositions -- only instead of using flowers and fruit and crockery, I use bits and pieces of ordinary and often neglected objects." 

In my new work at the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery, I am especially drawn to the beauty of natural materials that I work with -- the colors and sheen of the various metals from which the objects are made; the hues and textures of the wood boxes that house these objects, and the patterns of line and form in the imagery that accompanies the objects. Once again, I am attracted to the archetypal form of the vessel, which represents the feminine principle.

Emily Stuart’s work has appeared in several one-woman exhibitions in Salem and has also been awarded prizes in numerous group shows and private collections throughout Oregon. Her installation, Dreams and Bones, was featured at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in December, 2001.

Contribution to "Artful Sentiments" Exhibit