Emily Jackson
- Anna Lilli Garai
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Emily Jackson, working as Studio Wolffia, builds her work around rhythm, colour, and small everyday things. Her pieces might start with a scrap on the studio floor or a crayon line on paper, but they grow into something carefully balanced. Whether she’s working on canvas or building sculptural forms, she looks for that point where play meets precision. Her compositions are grounded, joyful, and full of quiet decisions that let each shape, texture, and colour hold its place.
Q: Your work is rooted in joy, but never simple. What makes a shape or color feel right to you?
A: I’m forever considering balance within my works — the right amount of push and pull from the combinations of colour, shape, pattern, texture, etc. Although my compositions are created with a full spectrum of colour, everything needs grounding with a lot of neutrals, but often you can’t really see them until you look more carefully. Shapes and colours must be opposing each other, and that’s what I mean about balance. It’s a dance.
Q: "Apple to My Pie" plays with balance and chance. How do you decide when a composition feels complete?
A: I’m naturally decisive, and I feel a strong sense of completion when a work is done — I just know it.
Q: You bring everyday textures into your work — fabric, packaging, crayons. What usually catches your eye?
A: Everything and anything. A lot of textures close-up and very random images that I capture all the time. These days though, a lot of it is within my studio — scraps, sketches, small works that I move around, and they reveal new combinations all the time.
Q: "Balanced 3" moves into sculpture. What shifts when the forms become physical?
A: With the wall sculpture, I’m seeking finesse. Elegance, and also playful humour sitting together in harmony. It’s a format that requires discipline and a high level of execution, so that satisfies me — whereas other areas of my practice call for the exact opposite.
Q: You describe your work as welcoming happiness in. What does that look like in the studio?
A: My studio environment is a comfortable mess. Studio time is about familiarity — for example, I don’t listen to challenging media when working. Everything is music or background programmes I know off by heart that keep me company but don’t push me too hard. I create the work for myself primarily — for what it gives me in return and what I am seeking from it. Once it goes to live its life beyond my studio, I know a lot of collectors have acquired work to mark a point of happiness in their own lives. It’s a good feeling.
Q: "Wolffia" is tiny, but it spreads wide. How does that idea shape how you think about scale and repetition?
A: The works have a common theme of being comprised of unique items — varied but similar, scaled up and down, and multiplied. I hold that idea up to the light all the time when working, regardless of the medium. It just stuck with me from day one as a sort of subconscious methodology.
