Emily Crockford

Emily Crockford is an artist who spans a broad creative practice encompassing painting, textiles and soft sculpture. Integral to her style is the use of bold, vibrant colour and intricate pattern making.

Based in Sydney, Emily Crockford is an artist who spans a broad creative practice encompassing painting, textiles and soft sculpture. Integral to her style is the use of bold, vibrant colour and intricate pattern making. Emily was a finalist in the 2020 Archibald Prize, and received the Australia Council National Arts and Disability Award for an Emerging Artist in the same year. She has exhibited widely including the Salon des Refusés exhibition at S. H. Ervin Gallery, Sydney in 2019, Suburbia at Cement Fondu, Sydney in 2018, and Good Neighbours at Artbank, Sydney in 2017. 

She is well known for her major public art commissions including: a 39 metre mural for Westpac’s Concord offices, two works for the City of Sydney’s Creative Hoardings Project (Midnight Zoo, 2019 & Sydney Opera House at Night, 2017), a 175 square metre collaborative mural for the University of Technology Sydney (Bird Life Jungle Disco, 2019) and a major hoarding for Lendlease at Barangaroo titled Garden Pop Bird Bop (2020). Recently she unveiled Oysters Eating Rainbows (2020), an 81.5 metre mural commissioned by Cultural Capital for the new WestConnex M5 motorway.

Emily is currently an artist with Studio A, a visual arts company in Sydney which provides professional development for artists living with intellectual disability. She has been an artist-in-residence at Cicada Press, UNSW Art & Design and Koskela, and has collaborated with a number of established designers including Corban & Blair and One Another. Her works are held in various collections including Artbank, and she has a long running collaboration with Sydney artist Rosie Deacon. 

In the near future, Emily will be continuing her superstar journey as a super talented artist blowing up her artwork onto the Sydney Oprah House and sending her bright colourful artwork all around the world!

In this video, NAVA chats to Emily and CEO & Artistic Director at Studio A, Gabrielle Mordy, about Emily’s love for colours and crazy patterns, and developing your own personal style.

Transcript - Emily Crockford (2.5 KB)

Video production by Jimmi Fenton 2021.

Image: Emily Crockford, still from ‘Art Bites: Studio A’ 2019. Photo by Georgia Quinn.