From architecture to art: Emily Day’s creative journey
Originally studying and working in architecture, painting is now Emily’s full-time gig after falling in love with it on a road trip around Australia.
When did you start painting?
I have been painting for as long as I can remember. I was very fortunate that my parents picked up on my love for drawing and painting very early on and sent me to art classes as a child. Painting has always been my hobby, although when I was studying and working as an architectural graduate, I definitely did not pick up the brushes as often as I would’ve liked. It was a six-month road trip around Australia in 2019 when I started seriously painting again. We would park our van up by a beach or near hiking trails and I would paint on flat canvas panels – they would dry on the dashboard and were stored under the mattress.
Your work is very floral based. Is there a particular reason for this?
Funnily enough, no one has ever asked me this question before! Florals are the perfect subject matter to me because they are always in a state of change. A flower can be both robust and soft, represent cycles of seasons, have varying symbolic meaning and bring about different memories for different people. They are so grounded in the present – and this is the feeling that I hope to evoke through my paintings.
