Join us on September 17th from 5:30pm for the opening of Lady Drag by Emma Beer.
Emma Beer, lady-drag, 2025 acrylic on linen and cotton 55cm x 35cm
Even though my work often focuses on the formal qualities of paint, there’s also a clear sense of human presence—our connection to time and space. I often wonder what painting means today, especially as it exists alongside the digital world. In my work, I try to find a balance between elegance and spontaneity—between control and rawness.
I'm also exploring whether abstract painting can express queer identity. Can abstraction represent queerness? How? I want my practice to explore queerness as a way of making and viewing abstract art, and to question how gender and sexuality shape artistic expression. The body, like painting or writing, is a tool for expression.
So I ask: how do gender and sexuality affect how abstract art is made or seen? Recently, I’ve been drawn to the relationship between words and images. I’m experimenting with poetry as a way to express abstraction—looking at how abstract writing and visual painterly language relate, and how both can evoke emotion.
Emma Beer has been living and working in Kambri for the past 20 years and is dedicated to a vigorous painting practice and the community of ANCA. Beer’s practice stretches to the depths and edges of textiles and writing with a painterly bias. Beer identifies as a queer female artist who can be placed somewhere between colour field painting and abstract minimalism through an Australian lens