About Emily

Emily says that for her painting is physical and direct — an opportunity to create visual poetry. Her subjects range from flowers to the landscape, faces, and the figure. Observing and making studies directly from life allows her to develop a vocabulary of marks. Then, in the studio, she uses these studies to improvise, compose and phrase her marks and motifs to create paintings.

It’s important to Emily that she names the feelings being evoked by her subject and her painted response. In this way, the intangible becomes an ingredient that pushes her images somewhere new. Writing in response to her subject and work also acts as a helpful catalyst to give focus.

Her Background

Emily Ball was born in 1967 in Colchester Essex, UK. She went to Exeter College of Art where she gained a BA in Fine Art Painting in 1989. She continued developing her painting, doing residencies, undertaking public commissions and exhibiting in the South East for the next 10 years. Alongside her painting, she established privately run courses in Contemporary Painting and Drawing in West Sussex. In 1999, Emily gained an MA in painting from The Surrey Institute of Art & Design, Farnham UK.

She had her first child in 2001 and second in 2004. During this period, she produced ambitious and successful paintings.

Emily’s drawings have been exhibited in both the Derwent Drawing Prize 2020 and the Trinity Buoy Wharf Prize 2021. She has exhibited at the RA Summer Exhibition and been a prize winner at the National Open Art Exhibition (NOA), judged by Maurice Cockrill RA, Jennifer Durrant RA and Nicholas Usherwood, art critic.

In August 2005, in recognition of her reputation and talent as a painter and teacher, Seawhite of Brighton (suppliers of art materials) gave Emily a large studio space in which to paint and teach within their premises.

In 2009 she published her first book, Drawing and Painting People – A Fresh Approach (reviewed by Matthew Collings and now in its eighth edition). Emily curated her book launch exhibition showing the work of the artists interviewed and included in the book. These included Rose Wylie, Roy Oxlade, Georgia Hayes and John Skinner. The show was opened by Matthew Collings and Emma Biggs.

In 2012 her second book was published, Emily Ball – Painting. This book is a 25-year retrospective look at the development of her work.

Currently, she is director of her Painting School, Emily Ball at Seawhite, and has a team of artist tutors running courses at the studio and online. The school has grown, as has its international reputation. Students from all over the world attend courses and Emily also travels to Cape Town in South Africa, Portugal and across the UK to teach painting.

In 2023, she made her first appearance as a guest instructor in the US, when artists Debbie and Brian Miller and Lynn and John Whipple hosted Emily to teach two workshops at McRae Art Studios in Orlando, Florida.

Emily is also a short course tutor at West Dean College near Chichester, UK.