Re-berth (Storge – Love of Family), Framed Original
Emma is a British mixed media artist whose layered, textural works blend sculpture, set design, and symbolism. Drawing on themes of dance, flight, and transformation, her art captures the drama and alchemy of the everyday.
In January 1932, Sheila Hawkins set sail from Perth, Australia, for Southampton, UK — a journey of over 18,000 miles and at least six weeks. A year ago, artist Emma de Polnay’s mother shared a photograph of Sheila aboard that ship. Emma restored and reprinted it, framing copies for her mother and sister. In that image, her grandmother radiates youthful optimism, embarking on a new life in a very new world as an artist, wife, and mother.
While Sheila’s London life was fraught with hardship, she faced it with remarkable courage. She defied the taboos of being a single mother in her forties, found solace and inspiration among bohemian friends across the UK and Europe, and established a successful career as an artist in a challenging, male-dominated environment.
Emma de Polnay’s artwork, Re-Berth (a play on the passenger ship term), depicts Sheila as a stoic ancestral figure, costumed and bathed in the warm glow of a copper sun, departing the heat of Western Australia. The tropical pitcher flower she holds represents the unique beauty of her artistic talent and her “otherness” in pre-WWII London — a testament to her strength and enduring spirit.
Sheila taught Emma how to see as an artist — an hour with her was worth a year in secondary school art classes. She was a hyper-sensitive, eccentric, and often scratchy soul (Emma is told she is very like her!) — but was profoundly loved and is still missed for her golden presence, 25 years after her passing at the age of 93.
Framed in a hand-finished painted wood float frame.
Size (cm): 43 x 43
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Specifications
Framed: Yes
Hand Finished: Yes
Medium: Mixed Media on Board
Edition Type: Original
Edition Size: 1
Size (cm): 43 x 43
SKU: EG25289
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About the artist
Emma is a British mixed media artist whose work draws deeply on her background in sculpture, set design, and life drawing. Her richly textured paintings and works on paper are imbued with theatricality and movement, often echoing recurring themes of flight, dance, and Greek myths and symbolism.
Inspired by her coastal home, she’s cultivated a ritual of collecting beach fragments - both natural and man-made. Combining these materials with recycled paper and graphics, and more traditional media, Emma creates layered compositions that celebrate the power of transformation. Her practice is a form of personal alchemy: part treasure hunt, part beach clean.
Emma often finishes her works (both originals and her giclee prints) with shimmering iridescent and metallic pigments, which she describes as the "sparks of ignition" that bring each work to life.
Emma studied at Wimbledon School of Art and Kingston University, before beginning a successful career as a set designer for film and television. She has since exhibited widely across the UK, and internationally as part of a Franco-British coastal art exchange in Ste Marguerite sur Mer.
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