Multimedia Performance Artist
Lives and works in Leicestershire, UK
emilyhought.art@gmail.com
My work is rooted in the exploration of awkwardness, using live solitary characters as guises to navigate vulnerability, humour, and performative identity. I investigate how identity is shaped and reshaped through rituals of dress-up and self-presentation. Inspired by the Theatre of the Absurd, I embrace discomfort, silence, and the surreal as tools for self-reflection and disruption, deliberately shifting away from dialogue to emphasise gesture.
Using abstract collages as points of origin, I create masks, costumes, puppets, and dolls that draw inspiration from masquerade, historical fashions, play, and the carnivalesque. These tactile objects—made from papier-mâché, cardboard, and textiles—carry a comforting nostalgia and provide an immediacy that lets me work with spontaneity and humour. There’s an inherent playfulness in the act of dressing up, and I lean into this to explore the beautiful strangeness of trying to be seen.
Through performance and installation that combine video, projection, photography, and found objects, I create spaces where the relationship between performer and costume becomes unsettled. My work invites viewers into a world that is both uncomfortable and playful—where the awkward is not something to overcome, but something to sit within.
Photo courtesy of Nyklaus Thorn
Education & Writing
2022-2025 BA Hons Fine Art| Loughborough University
Performance as Liberation: An Exploration of Imaginary Worlds in Performance Art
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Arts degree of Loughborough University
Academic year 2024-2025
Supervisor: Dr Ahren Warner
SDCA