The Role of Storytelling in Painting: Now Representing Emily Kirby

In Conversation
Emily Kirby’s paintings balance narrative, memory, and emotion within landscapes that feel both grounded and universal. Drawing inspiration from her early years in Zambia, her upbringing in the English countryside, and the relationships that continue to shape her, Kirby weaves together figures and environments with an earthy, resonant palette.
 
Her work explores dualities, strength and vulnerability, the individual and the collective, through compositions that unfold like stories, at once intimate and open to interpretation. In this conversation with Otomys, Kirby reflects on the role of place, storytelling, and community in her practice, and how these elements converge to form her distinctive visual language.
September 4, 2025
  • OTOMYS: How does the natural world or sense of place influence your palette and compositions?
     
    EMILY KIRBY: The natural world has always been a source of deep inspiration in my life, from my very early years spent on a farm in Zambia, to growing up in Sussex and spending a lot of time in the countryside with friends, so I think I’ve always been drawn to an earthy colour palette.
     
    I’m often drawing on memories of places where I’ve lived or come to know well. I use a culmination of these places to compose landscapes as settings for a story to be told. By not feeling the need to be specific about a place, I think the painting becomes more dynamic and yet recognisable in a broader sense. Both the figures and their surroundings must interweave to shape the narrative, this is often a huge part of the struggle to make a painting feel successful.
  • OTOMYS: Many of your figures appear simultaneously strong and vulnerable. What draws you to exploring this duality in the human form?
     
    EMILY KIRBY: I think there is huge strength and beauty in allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Many of my figures are inspired by different groups of friends and my partner, all of whom I consider to be very strong women. 
     
    Depicting community is important to me, but I’m also interested in the multi-layered qualities of our relationships and the intimate interactions that allow us to grow with each other. Being vulnerable helps us to really connect and feel part of a rich friendship.
     
  • OTOMYS: How important is storytelling in your practice, do your works begin with a narrative, or is the story created through the viewer’s interpretation?
     
    EMILY KIRBY: I grew up among a lot of amazing storytellers. It was so magical and full of humour and adventure, especially among my mums group of friends. 
     
    I think the art of verbal storytelling is a valuable quality and people who are good at it are deeply cherished in our communities. I’ve always been inspired by stories and those who can tell them well, and through painting I found the opportunity to become visual storyteller.  
     
    My paintings do begin with a narrative, but I often experience a point in the process of making a painting, when it has to be allowed to start shaping itself, and my work is more successful when I go with it. It’s often a case of adding or removing figures or reshaping elements of the surrounding landscape. It’s probably the subconscious taking over. My paintings are often revealing themselves to me and I like to learn from them as they progress, rather than being too strict on keeping to an original idea. Paintings often surprise me.
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