Holy Grounds

Kings, prophets, martyrs, saints, angels…lost, but ultimately redeemable souls.

Emil Kemp is a self-taught artist based in Morningside, Pennsylvania. Initially influenced by Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, and Luc Tuymans, Kemp created a signature style of thick paint and a color palette that harkens back to the Old Masters.

Holy Grounds offers a solid foundation to return to in our decidedly untethered world. Rendered in oil paint—a medium as historic as any subject it may depict—these images aim to remind, awaken, and preserve. Several works speak directly to long-past image makers, such as Titian and Ferdinand Hodler, who worked with the same reverence for ‘the holy’. Combining subjects from myth, history, and religious iconography, Kemp explores the idea of a timeless image and how the qualities of oil paint can work with subject and composition to heighten the poignancy and novelty of a portrayal.

Biography

Emil Kemp was born in 1992 in London, England. He now resides in Pittsburgh, PA.