By Emma McAdam-Marmont
150cm wide x 73cm high
Float framed in Black
Ready to hang.
 
Artist Statement – Figurative Nude Work
My nude works explore the human form not as an object of desire, but as a landscape - soft, powerful, and deeply connected to nature. The body, especially when reclined, becomes terrain: hills, valleys, flowing lines. I want these figures to feel expansive and grounded, like earth. They are not confrontational. They are gentle, feminine, and quietly strong.
 
Growing up with an English mother and a sense of modesty, I’ve always been aware of how the nude is perceived. My aim is to reframe that gaze - to create something that honours the female form without objectifying it. These works are not about seduction. They are about presence, vulnerability, and beauty on one's own terms.
 
I use sponges, soft tools, and layered washes to create movement and softness - like the feeling of skin, or the memory of a moment. The edges blur, the tones melt into one another. There’s a looseness to the surface that invites emotion before precision. You feel it before you see it.
There’s a sense of quiet energy in these figures - like a breath between moments. They’re relaxed but full of life. Every curve and contour is alive with intention. Each pose is open, self-possessed, and grounded in its own power.
 
Up close, the paintings are abstract - gestural, expressive, sometimes raw. Step back, and a figure emerges: calm, poised, embodied. I want the viewer to feel both the intimacy of touch and the distance of reflection.
 
These works are a celebration of the body as home. Feminine, yes - but universal in their emotional reach. They speak to softness as strength, to beauty as something innate and unguarded.
 
Ultimately, these paintings are about reclamation - of space, of form, of self. A reminder that the human body, in all its quiet complexity, is something worth celebrating.