Emma Creasey’s studio on Easey Street in Collingwood feels like a maze of small rooms, each doorway marked with a hand‑drawn number and the name of the artist inside.
From a rain‑soaked walk‑through to a surreal practice
Creasey, a visual artist who has occupied the space for three years, says she will soon leave for a house swap in Sydney. While a photographer sets up, the two of us stand before her paintings, and a shared love of The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington by Joanna Moorhead emerges.
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“Every now and then there’ll be a line that sparks an image, little fragments that stay with you,” she explains, recalling a line about the difference between a serpent and a human. That fragment inspired a floor‑level series of small works: four figures with their backs turned, gazing over lush foliage and a winding serpent.
When asked whether the images carry a religious tone, Creasey tilts her head. “I paint a lot of people with their hands in front of their bodies. Sometimes I think they’re praying, but sometimes I think they’re clapping.” The ambiguity feels intentional, a hallmark she admires in surrealism’s refusal to present a single truth.
Self‑taught roots and a pivot toward the uncanny
She did not grow up in a gallery‑going family and never expected to become an artist. “It took a long time,” she says, noting that her serious painting practice began during the COVID‑19 pandemic while she juggled jobs in event management, festivals, and a wine bar.
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Her education is largely self‑directed, relying on YouTube tutorials, art books and podcasts such as The Great Women Artists and Talk Art. A turning point arrived when Ben Mooney of Ma House commissioned a two‑by‑three‑metre piece. The project forced her out of her comfort zone, leading to the first studio in Brunswick—“we measured his wall in couch cushions,” she laughs.
The resulting painting of a dining table laden with glass bowls of oranges, persimmons and lemons now hangs in Mooney’s antique‑homewares store on Johnston Street. Shortly after, dealer Lily Mora began selling her work through the online gallery Sunday Salon, which focuses on emerging Australian artists.
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Early in her career, canvases featured food—jellies and cakes rendered in rich pinks and reds, evoking a kind of feminine decadence. Over time, the focus shifted toward surreal figures and, later, animals, especially horses. “The early work was very inside: the bed, the table, the house. To be external, painting animals and nature, feels like a kind of freedom,” she notes.
One painting shows a horse sprouting a tree from its back; another depicts three figures standing in a forest.
