"Emily Hartley Skudder's works capture a sense of cheaply-manufactured glamour and imitation luxury, like polyester lingerie or Italian-roast instant coffee granules. Yet, her paintings do not give the impression of belittling the pursuit of affordable glamour. Rather, the target of her critique is the sense of body shame that comes as a freebie with each purchase. She transforms decorative sink tops into windows that invite you to peer into the dark psychology of vanity — the manufactured compulsion to scrub away the messy, drippy parts of ourselves and rinse them down the fucking bathroom sink."
— Chelsea Nichols, The ART Paper, 2022

Emily Hartley-Skudder (b. 1988, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland) is currently based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) from Ilam School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury in 2012. She has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Aotearoa and internationally, including at a number of Ōtautahi and Te Whanganui-a-Tara galleries, Gus Fisher Gallery, Hastings City Art Gallery, The Suter Art Gallery, and Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Emily has participated in shows in Sendai, Japan; Mandurah and Melbourne, Australia; Xiamen, China; Austin, Texas, and multiple exhibitions in New York City, USA. In 2023 she was based in Ōtepoti as the Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago, and also won the Molly Morpeth Canaday Major Award.

View Emily's Artist page here