EMMA HERSEY
About
I am a visual artist and educator based in Denver, Colorado. Originally from a small town in Massachusetts, I moved to Colorado more than a decade ago to attend the University of Colorado Boulder, where I earned a BA in English/Creative Writing and Art Practices. I went on to earn a Master's in Teaching from the University of Northern Colorado and now teach full-time in the Denver area.
My work has always explored beauty and feeling with early paintings rooted in the macabre, portraits disfigured and dramatic, capturing emotional pain as something physical. That foundation now exists in something more luminous: large-scale portraiture exploring feminine energy, dreams, and the romance of the self. I am building a world through my work, one that welcomes all women, and anyone who sees themselves within it.
My paint & sip events bring both sides of my practice together — the artist and the educator — creating guided, intimate painting experiences that are as much about connection as they are about the finished piece.
I also take commissions across a range of subjects.
Artist Statement
My work explores the connection of feminine beauty and nature, with aspects of darkness and emotion overlayed.
For many years, my paintings centered on the macabre. I was drawn to dramatic moments where inner emotion could take visible form by creating an aesthetically pleasing portrait and then adding an opposite element, usually in the form of blood. That tension between beauty and distortion became a signature piece of my practice; a way of honoring hard emotional experiences as ones visible to others.
My current work explores feminine depictions through ethereal imagery with expression, energy, and the romance of the self. I am building a world through portraiture, symbols of nature, and the language of dreams: a world that welcomes all women — and anyone else who sees themselves within it. A celebration of goddess energy. Of the feminine experience in its full, luminous range.
I am still trying to capture something true about what it means to feel deeply, and to make that feeling beautiful enough to live with.