ABOUT EM MEINE
(pronounced ĕm mīn)
I make drawings, paintings, and sculptures as a means of exploring collective memory, storytelling, natural history, and anthropomorphism. The works are often figurative representations of imaginary objects or landscapes. I consider my artistic practice to be a ritual for contemplation and self-care, which enables me to experience a sense of connectivity and communion with everything beyond my self. My process is meditative, allowing me to disengage from the external world, and to instead explore an internal universe.
More recently, I’ve been making drawings that articulate vulnerable ideas based on my own experiences with anxiety or grief. With this work, I am exploring how very personal, unique emotions can become relatable and relevant to other people.
I am a former member of CTRL+SHFT Collective, an exhibition and studio space located in West Oakland from 2016-2020. As a group of cis-women, trans-spectrum, gender non-conforming, queer, and PoC members, CTRL+SHFT interrogated what it meant to build and be a part of a community. Through workshops, exhibitions, and other community engagements, we focused on providing a platform for the expansive CTRL+SHFT family, which included writers, artists, thinkers, performers, curators, allies, agitators, organizers, activists, and teachers who are people of color, women, queer, trans-spectrum, and gender non-conforming folks.
I received a BFA in General Fine Arts at Maryland Institute College of Art and my MFA in Fine Art from California College of the Arts. I have exhibited in New York, Texas, Chicago, and California, including shows at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Southern Exposure, and The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco.
Outside of my creative practice, I work full time as a mother and as Senior Director of Faculty Affairs & Records at California College of the Arts. After more than a decade in the Bay Area, I now live and work in New Fairfield, CT.
Contact me: em.meine@gmail.com
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