Rory Emmett lives and works in Cape Town. He completed his BAFA at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town in 2014, where he majored in painting and won the Judy Steinberg Painting Prize in his final year. Emmett was a Sasol New Signatures merit award winner in 2015 and his work can be found in a number of private and corporate collections. Emmett completed his PGCE in art and design didactics at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2017. He has taught art at secondary and tertiary levels as well as in primary school art workshops at Greatmore Studios, where he was a resident artist in 2017 - 2020. At present, he is an MFA candidate at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town.

Emmett makes use of abstract and figurative painterly and performative devises to explore notions of labour, identity formation and intermingling knowledge systems. The alchemical qualities of paint(ing) informs how he deals with colour and its various ideological and material implications, as a fluid pigmented medium and as inherited racial nomenclature. His projects reference personal and political discourses and historical narratives. These visual and conceptual enquiries take the form of multimedia installations which draw on archival and contemporary imagery and symbolism, often holding a sense of cultural familiarity in attempts to highlight and complicate that which is unconsciously normalised.

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2021
‘HEWN’, 99 Loop Gallery Cape Town, South Africa

2019
‘Things Which Are Not As Though They Were’, Gallery @ Glen Carlou, Paarl, Cape Town
‘Reprise’, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa
‘Building Ground: Grey Areas’, 99 on Loop Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2017
‘Concerning Alchemy’, AVA Gallery Cape Town, South Africa

2016
‘Survey: Selected Works’, (Solo studio project), Rheede Street, Cape Town, South Africa

2014
‘Colourman’, (Graduate Exhibition), Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town, South Africa

Selected Group Exhibitions

2022
‘A Point of Departure’, EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, South Africa

2021
‘RENAISSANCE | THE CONTEMPORARY EXPRESSION OF THE ANCESTRAL SPIRIT’, Tinney Contemporary, Nashville Tennessee
‘Untitled 8.99’, 99 Loop Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2019
‘Emerging Painting Invitational (EPI) Exhibition, First Floor Gallery, Harare, Zimbabwe
‘Present Passing: South by SouthEast’, Osage Gallery, Hong Kong
‘Connections’, Greatmore Studios, Cape Town, South Africa
‘Surfaces’, Kelvin Corner, Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa
‘Investec Cape Town Art Fair’, 99 Loop Gallery, CTICC, Cape Town, South Africa

2018
‘The Main Complaint’, Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town, South Africa
‘KWAAI’, Eclectica Contemporary, Cape Town, South Africa
‘The Devil Loves When We Loathe Ourselves’, 99 Loop, Cape Town, South Africa
‘Cape to Tehran’, Gallery MOMO, Cape Town, South Africa
‘Here and Now’, Greatmore Studios, Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa

2017
‘Concerning Alchemy’ AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
‘Throughlines’, Greatmore Studios Showcase 2017, Greatmore Studios, Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa
‘Dress Code’, Gallery MOMO, Cape Town, South Africa
‘A Painting Today’, Stevenson, Cape Town, South Africa
‘Colour Chart’, EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, South Africa

2016
'Abstracted’, EBONY/CURATED, Cape Town, South Africa
‘Sitditaf - Switch it Off’, Aardklop Arts Festival, Potchefstroom, South Africa
‘Barclay’s L’Atelier’, Western Cape Regional Finalists Exhibition, Rust-en-Vrede Gallery, Durbanville, Cape Town, South Africa
‘THAT Art Fair’, The Palms Décor & Lifestyle Centre, Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa