About Emily Jolley
Emily Jolley is an artist based in Cambridgeshire, UK, specialising in elegant and expressive abstract paintings. She is inspired by the natural world and the connections and transience of our daily lives.
My artworks typically feature sweeping curves, visible brushstrokes, highlighted pops of colour/interest, variations in texture or saturation and equal importance of positive and negative space.
My painting style has developed from a desire to express ideas of connectedness and existentialism – treasuring the moment - a commitment to art for art’s sake, and a fundamental appreciation of form, line, colour and composition. Abstraction allows a focus on these concepts while following and furthering the language of abstract expressionism.
I work in both large and small formats with a variety of media. As a maker, I am interested in the nature of producing art and of crafting – the drive to do it, authorship, mark making, and working with materials sympathetically. Making work in response to and/or that is intended for a particular place is also very motivating to me. Spaces and objects can affect how we feel.
Experiencing, observing, drawing, experimenting and playfulness are important to my practice and inform my abstract works. While my first love and most of my output is painting, my practice has broadened to incorporate wider media, skills and interests including stained glass, sculpture and printmaking. My activities include curation and collaborations.
I aim for my enjoyment of materials and making to be evident in my finished artworks. This is just as important as the communication of any ideas, observations, experiences or emotions that may have inspired the work – which, of course, is always open to individual interpretation.
Artists that I admire, and whose work I feel my own follows in the footsteps of, include abstract expressionists such as Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell, English modernists such as Barbara Hepworth, and innovative artists whose work is full of play such as Alexander Calder.
Every painting is a unique balance between intuitive and considered marks, energy, and calm. The process and composition play with notions of authorship – to what extent is the artist responsible for the final work – embracing the choices made, actions taken, incidental happenings that occur in fleeting moments. While final paintings are fixed, they clearly show that while they are what they are, they could have been otherwise.
Inspiration comes from all manner of observation, experiences and thought. I aim to create work that is beautiful and invites contemplation.
'You have to know how to use the accident, how to recognise it, how to control it, and ways to eliminate it so that the whole surface looks felt and born all at once.'
Helen Frankenthaler
'Abstract is not a style. I simply want to make a surface work. This is just a use of space and form: it's an ambivalence of forms and space.'
Joan Mitchell
‘I am not interested in creating an exact replica of nature, but rather capturing its essence.’
Barbara Hepworth
Education
2005 - 2008
BA Fine Art, Bath Spa University (First)
2004 - 2005
BTech Art and Design, Manchester Metropolitan University (Distinction)
Awards
Shortlisted for the Visual Artists Association professional artist of the year award, 2023
Howes Smith Memorial Prize for drawing, 2004
Residencies
The Retreats, Burwash Manor, Cambridgeshire, June-July 2025 (ongoing collaboration)
The Artists' Marquee, Burwash Manor, Cambridgeshire, July
Exhibitions
Solo
The Retreats, Burwash Manor, Cambridgeshire, January - March 2026
The Retreats, Burwash Manor, Cambridgeshire, June - December 2025
Keate Family Arts Trust featured artist/curator, Cambridge, September 2024
Momentary Significance: a solo show by Emily Jolley, Art and Soul Gallery, St Neots, May 2024
Emily Jolley: Solo show, Huntingdon Art Gallery, Huntingdon, January 2024
Providence, Cambridgeshire, August - October 2023
Growing Reflections, a solo show by Emily Jolley: Solo show, Art and Soul Gallery, St Neots, November 2021
Emily Jolley: Solo show, Espresso Library, Cambridge, May - July 2016
Group (recent)
2026
The Artists' Marquee, Burwash Manor, Cambridgeshire, 11-12 July 2026
Cambridgeshire Plein Air Artist of the Year, Histon Manor, 13 June 2026
Hemingford Arts Week, Plein Air Day and exhibition, The Manor House, Hemingford Grey, 7 June 2026
Spring Show at the Keate Family Arts Trust, curated by Emily Jolley, Cambridge, 9, 10, 16, 17 May 2026
Nature's Way, Art@One, Hemingford Grey, 24 April - 4 May 2026
Unapologetic, Bath Artists' Studios, Roper Gallery, Bath, 6-16 March 2026
Cambridge Arts Festival, CamCreatives SHINE, Cambridge 9-18 Feb 2026
Pushing The Boundaries, Art@One, Hemingford Grey, 21 Feb - 1 March 2026
2025
Visual Artists Association, Open Spaces global campaign, The Retreats, Cambridgeshire, 11 Oct - 3 Nov 2025
Cambridgeshire Plein Air Artist of the Year 2025 event, Histon Manor, 14 June 2025
Stapleford Granary, Here Now, Cambridgeshire, 3 April - 13 May 2025
Cambridge Arts Festival, CamCreatives SHINE, Cambridge, 10-19 Feb 2025
Keate Family Arts Trust, Cambridge, Group Show, July 2025
2024
Art Fair East, Norwich, 7-10 Nov 2024
ART-TRAnslations, Cambridge, Nov 2024
Bath Contemporary Artists Fair, Bath, 8 Sept 2024
Babylon Arts, Summer Open 2024, Ely, August 2024
Creative Reactions, Cambridge, 1 June 2024
Bath Contemporary Artists Fair, Bath, 14 April 2024
ART-TRAnslations, London Design Centre, April 2024
Inside-Outside, Art@one, Hemingford Grey, March 2024
Bocabar Art, Bristol, 5 February - 17 March 2024
2023
The Wrong Biennale, Following A Path Pavillion, online, 1 Nov 2023 - 1 March 2024
Art Fair East, Norwich, 1-3 Dec 2023
Abstract, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield, 19 Sept - 6 Oct 2023
VAA professional artist award shortlisted artists, online, August 2023
Babylon Open Art Exhibition, Babylon Gallery, Ely, August 2023
Cambridge Open Studios, Cambridgeshire, 22-23 July 2023
Water's Edge, Huntingdon Art Gallery, Huntingdon, 9 June - 20 July 2023
By the riverside, Art and Soul Gallery, St Neots, 6 April - 3 May 2023
Winter Open, Babylon Gallery, Ely, 10 - 29 Jan 2023
2022
Significant Form, Huntingdon Art Gallery, Huntingdon, 23 Dec 2022 - 2 Feb 2023
Affordable Art, Art and Soul Gallery, St Neots, 6 Dec 2022 - 15 Jan 2023
Artists' Marquee winter show, Cambridgeshire 26-27 Nov 2022
Abstract Expressions, Huntingdon Art Gallery, Huntingdon, 1 Oct - 10 Nov 2022
Babylon Open Art Exhibition, Babylon Gallery, Ely, August 2022
Cambridge Open Studios, Cambridgeshire, July 2022
COS showcase, Michaelhouse Gallery, Cambridge, June 2022
Flora Flora, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield, April 2022
Awash, Society of East Anglian Watercolourists, Handa Gallery, Norfolk, Feb 2022
Work Made In Lockdown, Fronteer Gallery, Sheffield, July 2021
Curation / arts management / speaker
Curator, Spring Show at the Keate Family Arts Trust 2026 (13 artists plus Trust collection)
‘An excellent show which brought in new visitors and new interest in addition to looking beautiful’ (Chair of Trustees)
Guest Judge, Harlow Open 2026
Cambridge School of Art, Anglia Ruskin University Advisory Board, 2025-2026 (ongoing)
International Women's Day 'Honouring Women's Art' talk panellist, Art@One, 2025
Co-opted Trustee, Keate Family Arts Trust, 2025
Interim CEO of Cambridge Community Arts, 2024-2025
Founded artist-led space Huntingdon Art Gallery; management and curation of monthly exhibitions and events 2022-2024
Artists' Marquee resident artists programme manager 2024
Creative Reactions management and curation team 2024
Mill Road Winter Fair Art Exhibition management 2024 (12 artists) and 2023 (17 artists)
Management and curation of Cambridge Open Studios artists showcase at Michaelhouse Gallery 2023 (90 artists) and 2022 (44 artists)
Art education and career
I studied fine art painting at Bath School of Art and Design, Bath Spa University, graduating with a First and showing work at the Holburne Museum, Bath; Old Truman Brewery, London; and Candid Arts, London. Prior to this I achieved Distinction at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Art Foundation year, won the Howes Smith Memorial Prize for drawing, and had work displayed at the Lowry Centre in Salford Quays, Manchester.
After studying fine art I developed a successful career in business development, returning to painting and showing work in 2016. I still work as a business development professional alongside my art practice.
Committed to creating opportunities in and for my community, I am currently a member of the ARU Cambridge School of Art Advisory Board. In October 2022 I founded Huntingdon Art Gallery, The gallery hosted 17 group and solo shows before closing in May 2024. From May 2024-April 2025 I worked as interim CEO of Cambridge Community Arts.
In 2023 I was shortlisted for the VAA professional artist award
I am a member of several professional and networking groups for artists including: Indie Cambridge, CamCreatives, the Neotists, Cambridge Arts Network, Cambridge Open Studios, and a-n.
I work from studios at Milton Studios (@cambridgestudios) and in Huntingdon.
Photo credit: Emily Jolley in her studio by Julian Eales for Indie Cambrudge, 2023