Kiali Emerson is a Canadian contemporary figure painter working in oil, acrylic and digital mediums. She graduated from the Visual and Digital Arts program at Humber Polytechnic, where she learned skills in illustration, design and photography.
Kiali’s work is infused with passion for portraying the figure in both beautiful and grotesque ways, where she challenges body stigma by rejecting the concept of ugliness. She also often includes creative and outlandish elements in her work, which are informed by Tolkien-inspired high fantasy fiction.
Her artwork will be shown in an upcoming group exhibition at Humber Galleries in April 2025.
“My work as an artist regularly involves the portrayal of the figure in paint. As I work, it is my goal to find the solution to the puzzle of obtaining a candid likeness. My portfolio also often confronts the idea of stigmatized bodies. I grapple with the subject of societal status quo in a two-pronged approach: firstly, I provide a window of reverence for all bodies, and secondly, I illustratively tackle societal stigma by flipping those notions on their heads.
I use oil paint the most frequently in my figurative paintings as it offers a luminescence to the finish, which I specifically utilise to evoke a fleshy quality from the figure. Jenny Saville is a contemporary artist who tackles similar subject matter and methodology, and is a great inspiration to how I undertake a likeness. Like Saville, I use a rich and expressive approach to conveying flesh tones. This specific quality within my work provides a reminder of the corporeal systems within the subject; that outward beauty is only skin deep (or, more frankly, that we’re all a bunch of walking flesh bags). I also take inspiration from classical masters in oil painting such as Gentileschi in how softly the figures are rendered. Gentileschi also inspires the themes found in my work by the way she portrays the themes of beauty and violence.”