Emily O’Hara’s practice investigates the human experience through painting. 

Her large-scale paintings explore our understanding of emotion through cinematic imagery. Their compositions are arrived at through montaging film stills depicting corresponding atmospheres, highlighting how repetition has cultivated iconography and understanding of subjective emotion. Repetition of visual language across emotive film scenes is microcosm to broader cultural phenomenon of shared experiences. The works reject homogenous representations due to the nature of emotion to transcend boundaries of culture, age, gender and era. The universality of emotion allows the viewer to form a sense of personal identity with the figures, with the subjectivity supporting a relationship between artwork and viewer. 

Playing on the collaged composition, the visual language aims to epitomise the overwhelming multiplicity of everyday life, the montage method of composition a homage to film itself. A greater atmosphere is achieved through building up thin layers of colour, the subsequent transcendence bringing a sense of beauty to otherwise melancholic scenes. Due to its versatile nature, oil paint is the artist’s preferred medium, utilising the different viscosities achievable with various oil mediums. Her paintings explore how paint itself can portray emotion, allowing application and colour to epitomise feelings, enhancing a figurative visual.