Emma Fielden’s works often begin with a simple gesture, extended until it becomes charged, poetic or absurd. Her practice frequently sets the body against scales it cannot contain: a star, a boulder, a fraction of a second. Moving between performance, sculpture, installation, sound and drawing, she works through sustained actions and close attention to materials. Breath, stone and metal recur throughout her work, each shaping the body while being shaped in return. Her training as a classical flautist and metalsmith informs both the physical discipline of her performances and the intimate processes of making. Some works are made alone; others depend on an exchange with another person. At the heart of her practice is a search for moments of resonance.

Fielden is based on Gadigal land in Sydney, Australia. She holds a Master of Fine Arts (Research) from the University of New South Wales, where her practice-based research explored inherited materialities and embodied practices. She also holds an Advanced Diploma of Jewellery and Object Design, and an Associate Diploma in Music (performance).

She has been practising for over two decades, with recent solo exhibitions including The Sky Swallowed a Stone (UNSW Galleries, 2025), accompanied by a publication with essays by Julie Ewington, and Hours of Stars (Passage, 2024). She has been included in group exhibitions such as Infinite: Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2024), The Unseen (Blacktown Arts Centre, 2023), and Radical Slowness (The Lock-Up, 2022).

Her work From Breath (2024), developed as a live durational performance at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, was recently shortlisted as a finalist in The 69th Blake Prize. She has received numerous awards, including the Paramor Prize Mayoral Award (Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, 2017), and has been a finalist in awards including the Ravenswood Australian Women’s Art Prize (2025), Mosman Art Prize (2024), Jacaranda Acquisitive Drawing Award (2022), and National Works on Paper (2022).

Emma has undertaken residencies at Art Omi, New York (2018), The Lock-Up (2019), and was a resident at Parramatta Artists’ Studios for over five years. She is currently a Sessional Academic at the University of New South Wales, School of Art & Design.

Upcoming projects in 2027 include a residency in Paris at the Cité internationale des arts supported by Creative Australia, and a residency at Bundanon, supported by the JMGA-NSW Jewellery and Metalsmiths Award.

Image: Opening of Matters of Time, Emma Fielden & Mason Kimber, UNSW Galleries, 2025. Photograph by Cassandra Hannagan