Artist's Statement

Emily Ebbs is a visual artist living and working on Gadigal land. Her process-based practice explores stain as both material and metaphor, evoking the emotional residue of trauma through fluid painting techniques. Working primarily on raw canvas, Ebbs allows pigment to seep into the weave of the fabric, creating permeated surfaces that echo the way trauma can imprint itself on the body. Drawn to the idea of the stain: something marked, discoloured, and difficult to remove, her work reflects on the lingering presence of emotional and psychological experience.

Central to her practice is the production of the stain through a process of collecting and boiling organic matter, which is then used in place of water to mix with paint. While materially subtle in its visual impact, this labour-intensive process holds conceptual significance, allowing the physical presence of the surrounding environment to be directly incorporated into the work. The act of foraging and preparation becomes a ritualised entry point, valued as much for its process as its outcome. The sensory dimensions of this method are integral. The natural aromas released through boiling and painting create a grounding and comforting atmosphere, fostering a heightened sense of presence and embodied awareness that informs the making of the work.

Working on large unstretched canvases placed on the floor, Ebbs approaches painting as a bodily and intuitive act. The surface becomes a site of connection between her external environment and internal imaginings, where gestures of staining and layering unfold. She combines traditional painting materials with organic elements from her surroundings, leaving traces of the landscape embedded within the work itself. In doing so, the landscape is repositioned not as the subject, but as a quiet collaborator.

Each work emerges as both an intimate portrait and an act of embodied remembering, holding within it the physical and emotional traces of its making.