Emily Culver

Emily Culver is a multimedia object maker originally from rural Pennsylvania, and currently based in Norfolk Virginia. Her work reveals the “toolness” of objects by questioning utilities or ideas of function/non-function. Like a prosthesis, a tool becomes the body, becomes an extension of the body’s capabilities.

As objects that thwart their supposed purpose or whose intentions are difficult to read, Emily’s works deny expectation and performance. When this line of communication is left open an opportunity for a new relationship is made.

“I think of all materials, surfaces and forms in relation to the body.. I see skinness in color, texture and metaphorical function, but also in longing for and responsiveness to touch. My work represents humanness, embodied within inanimate things and in unexpected ways, in an attempt to more fully and aptly experience the humanity within myself.

At times these works exist as poetry of form, material and function to be experienced in relation to the viewer's own physical self. They also become surrogate bodies by mirroring the complexities of sexuality, identity and relationships. As much as the experience of my work is housed within the cyclical relationship between the work and viewer, I also see myself yearning to be inserted as a tertiary component of this interaction.”