Emily-Jane Lunn

 

I didn't used to feel like an artist. As a being, creating is just as fundamental to living as breathing is and I struggled to view my practice as ‘art’. This constantly interfered with my work. Everything that I made was a part of my life, and making a product to show others felt superficial. There was a void between my practice and what I perceived art to be. It seemed closer to art therapy than art. I couldn't see my work as anything other than a necessity. I had always thought that I would make something I wanted to share eventually, but that I was not yet ready.

I began to recover after a period of ill health due to eating disorders and I discovered that my practice was not only successful art therapy, but I could finally see the art in my practice. I had been too involved in my work and it was only when I began to let go that I was able to see the art there. 

 

I constantly make things, paint, draw, collect objects, read and write obsessively in my journal. It was put to me that I was recording my stream of consciousness, a term introduced by William James and famously utilised by James Joyce in Ulysses. My practice has been a companion through some tough times, and text began to creep from my journal into my images. Letting them combine allowed me to finally find a way of working that felt to me like a completed piece of art. I’m ready to discover what lies ahead and what lies within.