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Karin Weber Gallery is delighted to welcome UK-based artist Emily Allchurch to its roster, and to announce an exciting two-stage collaboration, which will run until March 2018.

Allchurch uses photography and digital collage to reconstruct Old Master works in her creation of contemporary narratives. Her starting point is an intensive encounter with a city or place, to absorb an impression and gather an extensive image library. From this resource, hundreds of photographs are selected and meticulously spliced together to create a seamless, new fictional space. Each artwork represents this journey, compressed into a single scene. The resulting photographic collages resonate with place, history and culture. They explore the passage of time and changes to a landscape, imbuing contemporary life with a strong sense of history.

‘Then is Now’ is an introductory presentation of Emily Allchurch’s work at the gallery, showcasing her iconic piece ’Babel London (after Bruegel)’ alongside examples of her internationally acclaimed and more Asia-Focused series ‘Tokyo Story’. The exhibition also marks the kick-off of an exciting Hong Kong based project, entitled ‘Babel Hong Kong.’

The artist will spend several weeks in and around Hong Kong in November 2017, researching locations and gathering photophraphic material which will provide the basis for a specially produced artwork depicting the essence of the city of Hong Kong inspired by the tradition of Chinese old master painting. In this research process, Emily will enjoy the support and guidance of a number of local artists, gallerists and art academics. The ‘Babel Hong Kong’ piece will then be launched back in Hong Kong at the end of March 2018.

For this project, Allchurch has been awarded an Artists’ International Development Fund Award from Arts Council England and the British Council.

About the Artist:

Born in Jersey, Channel Islands, UK, Emily Allchurch first specialised in sculpture before developing her unique approach to reimagining historical artworks in a contemporary photo-collage style. She shows regularly across the UK and internationally, and has just exhibited two pieces at the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2017 in London. Having made her Asian debut with her ‘Tokyo Story’ series’ in 2013, this is Emily’s first presentation in Hong Kong.

Her work is in the permanent collections of the Tokaido Hiroshige Museum, Japan; Minneapolis Museum of Arts, USA; Manchester Art Gallery, UK; Nouveau Musée National de Monaco; States of Jersey, Channel Islands, UK and the Alberta College of Art and Design, Calgary, Canada. Corporate collections include the Financial Conduct Authority, Unilever, Morgan Stanley, Schroders and Rathbones in London, and Fidelity International in Tokyo.

Emily holds an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London and lives and works in Hastings and London, UK.

*This exhibition is supported by Arts Council England and British Council