Artist Statement:As a 2-D mixed media artist and painter, I use paint and collaged photographic imagery as a means to think through the larger questions, curiosities and areas of subjectivity that makes up our world. My work depicts the universe as a flexible space that is ever-expanding, collapsing, and colliding; along with our understanding of it. I often bring familiar subjects such as swimming pools, birds nests and lawn chairs in conversation with overarching mechanisms that make up our world, such as galaxies, orbital pathways and physics diagrams. These elements coalesce on the surface of the canvas in a way that straddles representation and abstraction, prompting the viewer to reconsider our relationship to the known world and opening up new ways of seeing and understanding our place within it. At its core, I create as a way to connect with the world beyond myself, and to visualize what it means to be a human in our current, and increasingly complex world. –Emily Somoskey Emily Somoskey is a mixed-media artist living in Walla Walla, WA. She received a BA in Art Education at The University of Akron in Akron, OH and an MFA in Studio Art at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, MI. Emily’s work explores image-making as a tool for understanding our human experience, examining the complexity of perception through layered oil paint and collaged photographic imagery. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, most recently at SAM Gallery and Chatwin Arts in Seattle, WA and Boise State University in Boise, ID. In addition, Emily has been awarded artist residencies at the Golden Foundation for the Arts, the Studios at MASS MoCA and was nominated for a 2025 Joan Mitchell Fellowship. Emily is currently an Assistant Professor at Whitman College.