Fate and Chance

Emma Webster
Painting
2017

Cardinal Hall, Sixth Floor

Born in San Diego, CA, Emma Webster paints in a variety of styles: abstract, figurative, surreal, representational, and gestural. She was an Artist-in-Residence at the Anderson Ranch Art Center and the Dumfries Royal Drawing School, Scotland (2017).  Her work has been exhibited in art galleries in Los Angeles and New York and is in the collection of the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, CA.
 
This painting addresses the issues that face most of us, and certainly most artists. Love, Wisdom, Art, Ego, Joy, Valor, Critics as well as additional words representing feelings, struggles and accomplishments comprise this house of cards that we all live by.
 
In the artist’s words, “Fate and Chance began my interest in still-life and dioramas. I was thinking about narratives around fragility, destiny, and/or ruin. In my painting I tried to think of the human as a metaphorical house of cards; fragile, but made of what exactly? The card triangle is built up as a sort of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; the cards at the bottom I see as being basic and less integral pillars of self, whereas the top cards represent my valued transcendent ideals.”
 
Webster earned a BA in Art Practice from Stanford University in 2011, and an MFA in Painting from Yale University in 2018. Her work has been exhibited in contemporary galleries nationally.