Using a unique combination of painting, printmaking and photography to walk a creative line between the figurative and the abstract,
Emily Filler's paintings walk the line between the real and the imaginary. There is a sense of the familiar but also the feeling that you are falling into a dream - flowers act as a departure point to a world that dissolves into abstraction.
She weaves together painting, printmaking and photography in her ‘painterly collages’, bringing together panels of color, meticulous patterning and floral elements. As these processes and elements interlace, they create a hybrid between representation and abstraction, the natural and supernatural.
Living in downtown Toronto, Filler is often influenced by her ritual walk to the studio, where she observes the landscape shift from bustling city life to contemplative residential neighborhoods. Exploring this contrast, the works playfully collate the images and textures from both worlds. Filler’s personal connection to flowers is also at play, as many of the silk-screened images are taken from photographs of blooms and other plant life from her father’s garden, the same garden in which she spent time as a child.
As with all her work, Emily Filler brings these elements together to communicate a sense of joy. Not wishing to present the viewer with a realistic interpretation of the flower, but rather to convey the beauty and the impressions which they leave behind in our memories.
Emily Filler lives and works in Toronto, Canada.