Artist Bio — Emma McAdam-Marmont

Born in Auckland, New Zealand to a Kiwi father and a mother from England, Emma McAdam-Marmont grew up in New Zealand surrounded by creativity, curiosity, and a lifelong fascination with the human form. From a young age she challenged herself to draw characters from the iconic Footrot Flats books, spent hours with her camera, and studied how people moved, rested, and interacted with the chairs and spaces around them. These early observations would later become foundational to her artistic language.

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Emma studied at the Elam School of Fine Arts, immersing herself in sculpture, photography, and mixed media. Her time at Elam sharpened her technical abilities and confirmed her desire to focus on tools, materials, and the physicality of artmaking rather than theory.

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For more than a decade, Emma balanced her artistic practice with a career in advertising, eventually becoming a Television Producer at Ogilvy. Though rewarding, the advertising world created a growing tension between her profession and her true calling as an artist. A pivotal trip to Europe in 2016 with her now-husband, Struan Hopwood, inspired a life-changing decision: to leave their careers in Melbourne and relocate to Daylesford, where they would dedicate themselves fully to their shared artistic life.

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Their move led to the creation of their gallery, Thirteen05, and a collaborative practice that merges two distinct styles into unified works. Emma and Struan now create pieces together that blend figurative forms, graffiti elements, surreal moments, and pop-inspired energy — a partnership that continually expands both of their creative worlds.

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Individually, Emma is known for her textured, layered compositions that combine acrylic and spray paint using palette knives, spatulas, and sponges. Her works invite both visual and tactile exploration, evoking introspection and emotional depth through a soft, tonal aesthetic. Her practice is anchored by two signature explorations: the Suits series and her intimate studies of the female form.

The Suits series examines the evolution of corporate attire across generations and genders. With an eye for detail and texture, Emma captures fabrics, buttons, and subtle shifts in style, exploring the intersection of tradition and modernity. In contrast, her work centred on the female form blends abstraction and figurative expression, drawing on photography to portray poses that convey empowerment, softness, vulnerability, and strength. These paintings celebrate the curved lines and emotional landscapes of the body, offering quiet moments of contemplation.

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Emma’s art has resonated with collectors worldwide. Her works appear in private and corporate collections across the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, New Zealand, and South Africa — a testament to the universal nature of her themes: emotion, memory, posture, identity, and the human experience.

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Always evolving, Emma approaches each new body of work with curiosity and a willingness to experiment. Her ideas often grow from conversation, observation, and the subtle behaviours she notices in everyday life. This openness to exploration is mirrored in her collaborative works with Struan, which push boundaries and bring to life new creative possibilities neither artist would reach alone.

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Emma continues to deepen her practice, seeking fresh ways to connect through texture, form, and emotional resonance. Her work remains an ever-unfolding journey — personal, intuitive, and grounded in a lifelong fascination with the stories living inside the human body.