Chartwell Notes

Emma Fitts creates her vividly saturated textile works by coating fabric in layers of highly pigmented, vinyl-based acrylic. She works the paint into both sides of the material, giving each piece a subtle sculptural weight. Speaking with homestyle magazine, Fitts says she’s drawn to textiles because they feel familiar: “We all have an intimate relationship with fabric through our clothing, and I enjoy drawing on these associations through recognisable features such as seams, folds, pleats, and pockets.”

Her work is informed by an interest in female-focused art histories, modernist design, and the language of domestic space. While developing PETAL, the Melanie Roger exhibition Hot Pressure Morning was first exhibited within, Fitts was inspired by the early 19th-century writings of colour theorist and botanical watercolourist Mary Gartside. In her book An Essay on a New Theory of Colour, Gartside used painted colour blots to explore how light, shade, and proportion shape the way we perceive colour. Looking at Hot Pressure Morning alongside Gartside’s blots, the connection comes through in the gentle balance of colours that move forward and fall back.