Artist Statement

I work in the traditional style of the great masters of the Renaissance. Oil paint lets me apply thin layers that let light and color show through, mimicking the transparency of human skin. I begin each portrait or figure by using the same method that Cennino Cennini writes about in his fourteenth-century handbook Il Libro dell’Arte: I tone the canvas with green paint, and allow flesh colors to slowly build up on top, creating the illusion of light and depth. The eyes of the subject are generally the last to be finished, as I believe they are an expression of the soul and the final animation of the subject.

Artist Biography

Emily Holman Morris is a figurative artist based in Dallas, Texas. A classically trained pianist, she developed a love for intricate beauty at an early age and would design complex patterns which she later applied to her ceramic work. She started painting with oil in 2009, and decided to pursue a traditional academic art education at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California, where she received her Master's in Fine Arts in 2013. Her highly realistic work captures the character of each person she paints in an intimate way.