Emma Davies is an artist whose practice comprises drawing, print, photography,  film, and sound. Her current artwork is informed by ‘Sense of Place’; diarising her relationship with new or personally significant spaces. In 2024, Emma expanded into music as one half of the ‘Oddfellows Experience’.  Emma is also a curator and an experienced, participatory, and socially engaged artist.

Formerly Education Curator at Fermynwoods Contemporary Art,  Emma is now Manager, Curator and Lead Artist on the ‘Artists in Residence @’  programme based in Northamptonshire, which between 2023 and 2024 saw her working with a team of seven other artists, leading art workshops for vulnerable adults in partnership with C2C Social Action, Sol Haven and The Hope Centre. Emma is also an art and music tutor at Youth Works Northamptonshire  , working with Key Stage Four young people who have found mainstream education challenging.

Brought up in a creative family, nurtured within an atmosphere of music, painting and photography, Emma has roots in a very artistic life which has deeply influenced and directed her. Having explored music, acting, set design and dance, this multi form approach started early on in Emma’s practice. During her degree (at De Montfort University, 1993) Emma produced work based on diaries and body image, through an installation, incorporating photographic works, photo-montages and text based works.

In 2014, Emma devised and produced ‘Magdalene’, a theatre piece, working collaboratively with dancers, actors, movement director and artist Chris Dugrenier, and Bafta Nominated musician and film director Paul Balmer, who composed and performed the score.

Connecting closely with her youth work and participatory practice has become a core thread to Emma’s work. Her commitment to working with young people in Northamptonshire, notably at Fermynwoods Contemporary Art as Education Curator, gave Emma the opportunity to explore this interest in participatory practice. Taking artwork into a community group and sharing ideas acts as a springboard for not only the artwork created by the group but then in turn, is fed back into Emma’s own practice. The AA2a residency at De Montfort University in 2017 gave Emma space and support to continue working on the participatory project “You Can’t Shake Hands with A Clenched Fist”, originally piloted at NN Contemporary Art.

The dedication and personal commitment to her work at Fermynwoods Contemporary Art led to being nominated as an RSA fellow; a member of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts. Her role at Fermynwoods incorporated managing and curating the Alternative Education Programme, and curating and leading on projects such as Free Exchange and Isolated Moments.