What's with the name?

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I have chosen to present as 'Emzki Emsky' because the name relates to my background.  As part of the Hebrew Tribe Diaspora, my  grandmother was a baby when she came with her parents around1900 escaping the Pogroms in Poland, to the UK, where they found  a safe haven in London.  My father's original Polish last names were 'Goodman Werbitsky'.  However he only used Goodman and the spelling for Werbitsky was forgotton.  He told me it was spelled with a Z-K-I.   It wasn't until I saw his birth certificate after he passed away just a couple of years ago that the correct spelling was Werbit S-K-Y !  However I had already used EMZKI for various creative projects.   Needless to say I started using that too as I love the idea of the Sky being in my name.  All my friends always call me 'Em' so that's how the name was born. 

 

Ironically however because his stepfather  allegedly pulled him out of Art  School (also Saint Martin's) and forced him to join the RAF and later go to work, he refused to let me study fine art at college and forced me to study a commercial art course. 

 

Starved for approval, I got into Central Saint Martins and got in to do fashion to hopefully  be seen by him and be accepted as a designer for his fashion label.  However the moment I told him they accepted me (and this was the only college I applied to) he, without skipping a beat said 'It's gone downhill'.  I would for year never get his approval.  And he refused to let me work at his business basically because he was in love with his designer who he eventually gave his business to. Eventually after graduating 

 

While I was at St. Martins, however,  I won the 'Rimmel Creative Advertising Award'  which catapulted a career into Art Direction in Advertising.  But I continued painting portraits and other figurative work  on my downtime, and posting them onto a website at the time called 'pop art gallery'. 

 

Moving to DC to become a wife and a mother to all all American Boy caused a massive shake up to my core being and identity in general.  However I took the opportunity  of the fact my husband at the time like the idea of a British artist wife, which supported my dream go back to art school to finally study oil painting at the Corcoran and get an art studio.  I found a small space at the Jackson Art Studios where I was able to continue my art outlet adventure of painting.   I began again with painting roses as a representation of my personal experiences. 

 

At that time I presented under my married name 'Emma O'Rourke'.  However while doing a show in London, with many Irish girls coming up to me thanking me it just didn't feel right as an Ashkanazi with no Irish DNA to present myself in this way, so I took back my maiden name of Goodman.  In the past while painting banners for a Ragga Club in London, I had used the name Emma Werbitzki and did start a Facebook art performance on my name adding names from my lineage monthly, until my name became so long and FB wouldnt allow me to add more.  However we did get to Emma Jane Sara Goodman Werbitzki O'Rourke...

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Now onto the flowery work...

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The  theme of the feminine experience weaves through the work, mixed with an edge of music and the irreverence.  Music and Fashion combine and perceptions of beauty, the way fashion indoctrinates girls to an unnatainable idea of beauty for acceptance, the concept of the tabloids making it almost now an anomaly to have 'your own tits or lips'  in our time... 

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That being said, there was much pressure to always look perfect growing up.  Having been dragged through the house by my hair for looking 'ridiculous' when having a rockabilly hairdo as a young teenager and being forced to comb my hair out, and then when married being told I had to dress a certain way to fit in with my ex husband's country club, or being told my ass was too fat made me more and more vulnerable and realizing I was trying to change to fit in and be accepted, art was the place I could express myself and feel safe.  

 

Graduating from Central Saint Martins with BA Hons in Fashion Communications and Promotions meant my degree was in Fashion Journalism, Fashion Photography, Illustration, and Styling. Becoming a fashion writer and photographer for the Fashion Section of The Independent Newspaper on graduation for a short while or until I pissed off my Editor at the time Marion Hume.... Designing for Club On magazine, writing for Dazed And Confused about British Rap, and even at one point being a female rap finalist in 'Search for a Rap Queen 1992' - music has always been a strong influence in many ways.  Throughout the time in college I painted banners and murals, did photography and styling, and created flyers for clubs and music establishments names including Acid Jazz, Blue Note (club on Hoxton Square) , Magic Bus, Rotatation at Subterranea, Quaff Records in Berwick Street, Metamorphosis (styling and photographing Melanie Blatt for All Saints) styling for Two Unlimited (No Limits Video) and Club Art in Southhampton.  I saw myself as ambitious, however really I was probably just trying to be seen, and be accepted.  Moving to DC was definitely a sideways move.  Or maybe backwards.  I didn't fit in anywhere. 23 years of feeling like a ghost.  I got married, had children, got divorced, and went through the motions feeling incredibly alone.  

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Recently having moved out of DC to the more arty Virginia Capital Richmond, finding feet in a new space, reinventing myself and trying to find myself again with as to what I am producing.  The portraits became part of that. Looking at 'Larger than life' inspirations or grounding people throughouit my life.  The musicians I loved  - promoted my drawing of Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock and Grace Jones along with many others.  The one thing my parents did right was introduce me to great music.  My first concert was Earth Wind and Fire, a show I will never forget despite only being about 10 years old. 

 

Typography threads its way through my work also. Either with poetic writing or words and more recently Kaballah names of G-d which are powerful affirmations of peace, transformation and hope. Needless to say my time in advertising and continued freelance work for Washington Life Magazine and various Non For Profits, I have a love for not only people's faces but type faces too.  When I worked at Dynamo Marketing, Coca Cola was one of our biggest clients and I spent more time than I care to mention drawing the coca cola logo by hand when drawing up poster ideas before taking them to the computer.   That coupled with a love for Pop Art, coupled with the freeing motions of expressionism and the sheer beauty of the PreRaphaelite and Impressionist movements definitely influences and inspires me.  

 

PRESS

Talk Radio Europe

Daily Mail

http://www.womentalking.co.uk/features/feature-802.htm

http://www.womentalking.co.uk/lifestyle/articles/article-966.htm