Emily Gates- MA Illustration
I'm a Stockport based artist and illustrator working primarily in analogue collage. My work explores sense of place, nature connection and environmental issues. Layering is central to my practice, both as a physical process and as a way of communicating meaning within my work.
My final MA synthesis project is an exploration of place – specifically focussed on Stockport - and the elements that shape a location's identity. The project explores not only the character of the place itself, but also the development of a methodology through which I could investigate, interpret, and translate my experience of this and any town or city. Beginning with psychogeographic walking, observing and collecting information, I then move into collage, where I bring together found papers and ephemera of personal and historical significance, including dressmaking patterns, maps, and discarded prints, alongside my own photographs and fragments of archival imagery. The combination of these elements becomes a visual interpretation of my experience of Stockport, through architecture and urban structure, movement, atmosphere, and the coexistence of historical traces with contemporary elements.
