Meet the Yorkshire Artist Currently Exhibiting at The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
As Yorkshire painter and printmaker Emerson Mayes prepares to show his newest creations in Newcastle this summer, we learn more about his inspiration
Although Emerson didn't come from a particularly creative family, his parents were supportive. ‘My dad was a structural engineer who worked from home, which meant there was always a lot of paper around, and drawing was something my mum would sit and do with me as a small child,’ he says. ‘Harrogate had a very good art college, and its allure was just too strong. A few weeks in the life drawing studio and I was hooked.’
At the age of 16 Emerson made what his school considered to be a baffling decision, and went to art college. ‘They weren't happy about it, though my parents were very supportive,’ he says. ‘I then did a degree in Graphic Arts and Design at Leeds Metropolitan University, specialising in illustration, though the tutors gave me enough freedom to spend most of my time working outdoors – from the post-industrial landscapes along the Leeds canals to the farmland around the city and the edge-lands between the two. Since graduating, over 30 years ago now, I've made my living selling work through galleries and more recently direct to buyers through social media.’
Emerson’s artwork captures the landscape and the wildlife that shares that landscape. ‘In both cases I'm trying to capture a direct response, with an integrity to the subject and to the media,’ he says, which is paint and printmaking. ‘They seem very different but each feeds into the other, always informing, always enquiring. The results won't change the world or make political statements – but attempting to define and describe the world around me feels no less justified today than it has throughout art history. If it creates a small amount of joy in a viewer, that's reason enough to keep going.’
His days are always varied. ‘Most days are spent in the studio, working on paintings and prints or wading through the admin that comes with being self-employed,’ says Emerson. ‘Some days are still spent out in the field, which mostly means standing very still waiting for something to happen, taking bad photographs on my phone and making brief jottings on scraps of paper.’
Emerson finds inspiration in the places he knows well – the Yorkshire landscape, the Scottish Highlands and Islands, the urban edge-lands of his childhood, and, for his current exhibition, the Northumberland coast. ‘The locations change, but the one thing unites them is the fact I know them all well and love them all,’ he says.
A Fleeting Presence is currently showing at The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle. This solo show includes more than 40 of Emerson’s works including Northumberland coastal landscapes, wildlife monotypes and drypoints, and a handful of paintings on gold leaf. ‘The title probably says something about what connects it all: those moments that catch the eye and are gone almost immediately, but stay in the mind for a long time,’ Emerson says. ‘If someone slows down in front of a piece, looks at it longer than they expected, and gets a little joy from it – that's good enough. And if they want to buy something and live with it at home, that would bring me, and my bank manager, joy too.’
After a big deadline, Emerson admits there’s a strange emptiness in the studio. He has recently launched a monthly postal subscription club called Field Notes – subscribers receive postcards of his work each month plus a folded field note of his cultural wanderings around that month's wildlife subject. ‘I want it to be about connection: to the natural world, and to each other,’ he says. ‘As everything moves increasingly online, something physical arriving through the post feels more important than ever.’
See A Fleeting Presence at The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle from 10th July to 6th September. See more of Emerson’s work at emersonmayes.co.uk.
Is there an artist who inspires you?
I could give you a very long and ever-changing list, but the artist I keep coming back to is Mark Rothko – which is a surprise, given that he worked on purely abstract work on a vast scale and I work figuratively and small.
Where's your happy place in Yorkshire?
I'm not sure I have just one – I can be happy anywhere from my studio to the urban edge-lands, to city centres, to the moors and coast. Though I should say, I've just come back from Holy Island on the Northumberland coast, which was a wonderful experience – so perhaps my happy place has temporarily migrated north.
What are your plans this summer?
I'll tidy up, give my brain a rest, then inevitably get the itch to start again. I also want to spend some time properly promoting Field Notes, my monthly postal subscription club, which I'm genuinely excited about.
