In this episode of A brush with... Ben Luke sits down with Emma Talbot to discuss her influences; including writers, film-makers, musicians and other artists, of course, as well as the cultural experiences that have shaped her life and work.
Talbot was born in Stoubridge in the Midlands of the UK and currently lives and works in London. Her work brings together drawing, painting, text, sculpture and animation in installations that fuse a personal response to her internal emotional world with societal and geopolitical issues, from feminism to capitalism and climate change.
Emma Talbot, detail from Volcanic Landscape (2022) Acrylic on silk Courtesy the artist © Carlo Vannin
In this episode, she talks about her love of the Sienese early Renaissance artist Sassetta; her troubled response to Gustav Klimt’s The Three Ages of Woman (1905) and how she has used it as the basis for a new body of work made for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women; how she returns to the novels of George Orwell and Edna O’Brien; and the profound effect of Federico Fellini’s films, including Satyricon (1969).
Plus, she answers our regular questions about her studio life, the art she would most like to live with, and, ultimately, what art is for.
In this episode, Talbot talks about Klimt's paintings and their unsettling undercurrents—as in the portrayal of age and gender in The Three Ages of Woman (1905) (pictured above).
• Emma Talbot: The Age/L’Età, Max Mara Art Prize for Women, Whitechapel Gallery, London, 30 June-4 September; Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 23 October-19 February 2023.
• Her work is included in The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennale, until 27 November 2022.
• Series 10 of A brush with... runs from 1-22 June, with episodes released on Wednesdays. You can download and subscribe to the podcast here. This podcast is sponsored by Bloomberg Connects.