BIO

Emily Rose is an interdisciplinary multimedia artist. Themes of home, identity, and memory are central in her paintings, drawings, sculptures, and installations. Surrounded by her family’s oral stories, a blend of cultures, food, celebrations, and spiritual beliefs, Emily Rose infuses these narratives using found objects, textiles, dreams, and memory into her work. In the retelling of these stories and memories, the artist borrows some of the original elements while changing other parts, straddling between reality, make-believe, and nostalgia.

Currently working on her three-part memory installation series, Homecoming (name subject to change), Emily Rose was awarded numerous art residencies to complete her projects, including the Kala Art Institute and ACTivate residency at the Boston Center for the Arts. In the winter of 2025, Emily Rose will finish her project during her artist residency at Mass MoCA. Group exhibitions of her work includes: Elevated Thought, ShowUp Inc. (formerly Beacon Gallery), Essex Art Center, Stevens-Coolidge House and Garden, Kathryn Schultz Gallery, The Dodge House Gallery, Mary Castelnovo Gallery, Copley Society of Art, The Umbrella Arts Center, Scollay Square Gallery, The Urbano Project, Boston Arts Academy. Publications of her work can be found in the Boston Art Review and Artscope.

Among her accomplishments, Emily Rose was awarded the Wagner Impact Studio Award, Massachusetts Cultural Council Grants for Creative Individuals, Boston Media Arts Empowerment Award, Edward Mitchell Bannister National Exhibition: Celebrating BIPOC Artists, and the Copley Society of Art National Show: Crossing Borders Grant.

Artist Statement

The power of memory, healing, and narrative are all reflected in my multimedia art. My work explores the emotional, physical, and psychological effects of the colonial relationship between the US and the Caribbean and its diaspora. I explore how identities are formed, rejected, and erased to build a sense of belonging and community. I use familial oral stories, found objects, and unconventional materials to uplift stories, people, places, and events. In my paintings, figures appear in lush landscapes and domestic interiors to invoke one’s imagination, senses, connections, and possibilities to create new meanings of identity and home. The unconventional materials found in my work are coconut husks, shells, rice, beans, chairs, fabric, tropical fruit, and beads. Influenced by familial oral stories around migration, sense of belonging, life, and loss, I repurpose found objects and revisit physical and metaphorical spaces through collective memories and dreams to remember and heal the past, present, and forgotten parts of ourselves.

2024

PUBLICATIONS

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

El Salón: Reimagining Self-Love, Rituals, and Healing in the Kitchen, Jean McDonough Arts Center, Worcester, MA

2023

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

Dark Matters: The Artistic Evolution Camp’s Final Showcase, Elevated Thought, Lawrence, MA

Shine Dorchester, Southline Boston, Boston, MA

2024

Unaccustomed Earth, ShowUp Inc., (formerly known as Beacon Gallery), Boston, MA

Made in USA): Crafted Visions, The Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts( صنع في أمریكا, Boston, MA

Art in the Gardens, Essex Art Center and Stevens-Coolidge House and Garden, Andover, MA

EMERGING ARTISTS EXHIBIT, Kathryn Schultz Gallery, Cambridge, MA

Essex Art Center Salon Show + Art Sale 2023, Essex Art Center. Lawrence, MA

Edward Mitchell Bannister National Exhibition: Celebrating BIPOC Artists, Mary Castelnovo Gallery, Providence, RI

2023

Lost and Found, The Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA

Still Shining: Boston Arts Academy Alumni Show, Boston Arts Academy, Boston, MA

Fay Chandler EMERGING Art Exhibition, City of Boston Arts and Culture, Boston, MA

National Show: Crossing Borders, Copley Society of Art, Boston, MA

joy of living:summertime, Alchemy + Art, Amesbury, MA

Musketaquid Earth Month, The Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, MA

2022

COLLABORATIONS

In the Kitchen We Gather: From Soil to Soul, El Salón x Adobo-Fish-Sauce, REC's YouthGROW Farm, Worcester, MA

2024

COMMUNITY ART PROJECTS

Studio Residency, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA

Artist-in-Residency Program, Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA

Who Has A Voice? Radical Listening & Extended Vocality Program, The Urbano Project, Cambridge, MA

Performance: History/Ritual/Identity" Community Art Project, The Urbano Project, Boston, MA

Safe Passage (Amulet), NOW +THERE Intern, Rhea Vedro’s Studio, Malden, MA

RESIDENCIES & FELLOWSHIPS

Massachusetts Artist Residency, Mass MoCa, North Adams, MA

2022

ACTivate Residency, Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA

Edward Mitchell Bannister National Exhibition: Celebrating BIPOC Artists, The Providence Art Club, Providence, RI

Opportunity Fund, The City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, Boston, MA

Wagner Impact Studio Award, Wagner Foundation, Boston, MA

Massachusetts Cultural Council Grants for Creative Individuals, Boston, MA

Boston Media Arts Empowerment Award, The Loop Lab & The City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, Boston, MA

2025

2024

2023

AWARDS & GRANTS

National Show: Crossing Borders, Copley Society of Art, Boston, MA

2024

2023

2022

It’s Getting Hairy, "Pelitos", Raandoom, İstanbul, Türkiye

2024

2023

Unaccustomed Earth Exhibition Review, Artscope Magazine, Issue: November/December

Special Art Project, Boston Art Review, Issue 11: Emerging

El Salón: Reimagining Self-Love, Rituals, and Healing in the Kitchen, The Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA