Have you heard of Emily Ponsonby? If not you will! She is a very talented 26 year old artist based in London. Emily made contact with The Hive Honey Shop to buy our beeswax candles for her latest exhibition on the Kings Road London. She is showing her work for a month at Partridges wonderful food shop in London’s King’s Road until the end of this month and will be having a bigger show in London next Spring. Emily’s current exhibition uses beeswax in the creation of her artwork. Her art smells of honey and beeswax, and the beeswax lends a 3D effect to the artwork. Emily told us,
“It has taken me the last 6 years to develop my technique. I sketch, in oil, a very loose and fluid image of the subject sitting in front of me – pushing the motif around with a rag and paintbrush until it is just right. This image shall now be trapped beneath the wax. The melted beeswax fills the room with the smell of honey. It’s so good! The oil is then buffed into the waxy layer before I scrape, claw and rub sections of it back off – almost sculpting. This procedure is repeated time and time again until it reaches a point where the eye flows across the plain dipping and weaving through the grooves. It’s a long and unpredictable process but that is what makes the finished result so satisfying!”
We at The Hive Honey Shop are all very impressed with not only her technique and subject matter, but the creative detail and emotion her work contains are just breathtaking. So don’t miss your chance to see her work up close and personal! Londoners get down there, and if your planning to visit London, then add this must see to your list.
EMILY PONSONBY
BREAKFAST : THE TASTER
AN EXHIBITION IN OIL AND BEESWAX
29th September-31st October
At Partridges of Chelsea, 2-5 Duke of York Square, London SW3 4LY
Here is her artist statement about the exhibition.
Breakfast – those first few moments of the day that are entirely yours. You have set your alarm; you know how long you need to shrug off the hazy cloak of sleep; and you know, most importantly, what is waiting in the fridge to fuel your body and keep hunger at bay. It is a time to ponder the new day and to realise that past worries are just that. It is a time for lazing in the bath, reading the morning papers, walking the dog, or pounding the deserted streets on an early jog. Control is yours. You are ahead of slumbering bodies, not yet stirred from their dreams.
The honeyed aromas of melted beeswax fill the studio. Thoughts of honey soaked, buttery toast devoured within that first hour of the day have become the driving force of Emily’s latest work. She sculpts, etches and buffs the oil into the beeswax, trapping and exposing forgotten layers as she does so, creating an unpredictability that gives the waxy paintings a life of their own.
Returning from periods in Scotland, Italy and in the disappearing food markets of Hong Kong, Emily has set up life in London. She has exhibited in group shows including The Royal Society of Oil Painters, The Society of Woman Artists, as well as in The Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh and Bristol at the Royal West of England Academy. She has also been short listed for the BP Portrait Awards. She is currently working towards her first solo exhibition in May 2017.
