Image courtesy of Nyklaus Thorn
Artist Statement
My practice begins with collage, not simply as a way of making imagery, but as a structure behind everything I make. Layering and rearranging fragments becomes the starting point for masks, costumes, puppets and performances, where figures can migrate between paper, object, prop, and embodiment.
I am interested in the moment something constructed can begin to feel unexpectedly alive. Through handmade, tactile processes, painted forms shift into sculptural faces and stitched textiles become awkward bodies. Rather than concealing the mechanics of making, I like the characters to carry visible seams, joins and imperfections, existing in a continual state of becoming. Rather than pretending there's one coherent version underneath, my work accepts that people are layered composites.
My work is grounded in everyday experiences of self-consciousness and the peculiar awareness of allowing oneself to be seen. Drawing from masquerade, historical costume and traditions of absurdist theatre, I use performance as a means of confronting personal anxieties whilst reframing them as sites of transformation. Humour becomes a way of approaching vulnerability without diminishing it. The figures that emerge are often exaggerated, wonky and strangely familiar. They stumble through social rituals with an earnestness that allows absurdity and tenderness to coexist.
As images increasingly mediate our experience of one another, I find myself returning to the idea of image becoming body. There is a recurring use of doubles or "doppels", as I like to call them, often appearing as doubles or echoes of one another across different states: mirroring how we often exist as multiple versions.
Image courtesy of Charlotte Shearman Smith
Biography
Emily Hought (b. 2004) is a UK-based performance and mixed-media artist. Her practice moves between collage, print, costume, sculpture, puppetry and live performance. Beginning with layered paper constructions that she develops into characters. These figures migrate across different materials and into embodied performance, creating temporary personas that exist somewhere between image and body.
Working with textiles and repurposed materials, like cardboard, Emily combines craft processes with theatrical play. She draws from traditions of masquerade, historical dress, and absurdist performance, driven by an interest in animation and the emotional potential of obviously handmade forms. Through awkward bodies and recurring doubles, she creates performances that combine humour and play with a vulnerability that is silently disarming.
Emily graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Loughborough University in 2025. She is an AFF Breakthrough Artist Fellow (2025–26), and her work has been recently presented at Humber Street Gallery, Martin Hall Gallery, Two Queens Gallery and Loughborough University.
© Emily Hought