Emma cc Cook (b. 1989, Minneapolis, MN; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) graduated with a BFA in painting from University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, and studied at the Angel Academy in Florence, Italy. Select residencies include New York School of the Arts at Vytacil, NY and Campos de Gutierrez in Medellin, Colombia. Cook is a recipient of the MSAB grant, the Carter Prize in Painting and the Gay M. Grossman Memorial Scholarship.
Cook often combines dark paintings on canvas with abrupt insertions of walnut sticks, textural variations, and intriguing thematic ventures that are inspired by rural American West landscapes and the broad discourses surrounding identity, history, environment, and erasure. In Caterpillar, Cook emboldens her dark paintings with bulbous vibrant red color fields, highlighting the tension, violence, and beauty in this history.Â
Cook’s recent solo exhibitions include: Acre Eaters, Anonymous Gallery, New York (2024), Manners, Hayseed, 12.26, Texas (2024), Dibbler Stick with James Castle, Adams & Ollman, Oregon (2023), Pilgrim, Public Gallery, London (2022), Flags, Moskowitz Bayse, California (2022).
Recent group exhibitions include: Forthcoming, Sixi Museum, China (2024), To supplement the fragment, Public Gallery, London (2024), Nouveau Bozeaux, Bozomag, California (2024), Dreams and Reflections, Richard Heller, California (2024).
Em Kettner (b. 1988, Philadelphia, PA) is an artist and writer based in Richmond, CA. Her installations feature sculptures, tapestries, and drawings that detail the ingenuity of people with disabilities. Her miniature sculptures are about the ties that bind us —bloodlines, companionship, and ever more sprawling webs of connectivity.Â
Recent solo exhibitions include: Homebound at François Ghebaly Gallery (New York, NY), Sick Joke at Chapter NY (New York, NY), Slow Poke at François Ghebaly Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Play the Fool at Goldfinch (Chicago, IL).
Her sculptures are currently on view in the exhibition, “Tender Loving Care: Contemporary Art from the Collection” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through July 2025.
Em’s work has been reviewed and published in Cultured Magazine, ArtForum, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, Contemporary Art Review LA (CARLA), HyperAllergic, Institutional Model, and Sixty Inches From Center. In September of 2023, Fulcrum Arts published her interactive digital storybook, “Doctor, Doctor,” an illustrated fever dream journey through history, myth, and patient-hood.Â
Em earned her BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is represented by François Ghebaly Gallery in Los Angeles and New York.
Outer Space would like to thank Francois Ghebaly for for their support and help in organizing this wonderful exhibition.
