Born in 1973, the artistic Australian Emma Hack has spent her entire career decorating the bodies of others, be it as a painter of child faces or a beauty consultant, but she always felt a leaning toward more artistic pursuits, so the transition to full body painting was in many ways inevitable. Hairdresser and make-up artist that she was and is, Emma has evolved into a body illustrator and all-round visual artist of world renown.
These days, she can spend almost eight hours on each model, painstakingly applying floral designs and other patterns. In 1999, She produced a calendar, then staged her first exhibition of pin-up style models, after which, in 2002 her first ‘art’ based collection named ‘Petal’
image credits
Emma was very strongly influenced by the life and works of Florence Broadhurst, a singer and artist, who was an inspirational businesswoman r in Australia from the 20’s to the 50’s, producing startling wallpaper designs which redefined artistic convention, and that is how many of today’s critics view Emma’s art installations in current times. Her first creations involved putting painted clothing onto the body of the model, to make it appear that the model was wearing them and the illusions have evolved from there.
When asked about her work, Emma commented. “I love exhibiting and creating my own work. As a make-up artist working in the advertising world, you are mostly always following a brief. I guess my exhibited work has a loose feel to the finished product and art allows for that. I am also really enjoying the photography as well and creating what I want to see in my mind. I really love the illusions that can be created on the human form”
Emma says that she was inspired by 60s supermodel Verushka, who was famous for painting herself into rustic environments. One day she saw Florence Broadhurst wallpapers on display in a hardware store, and fell in love with it. She actually created the works based on it before asking permission from David and Helen Lennie of Signature Prints, who believed s that Florence would have been delighted and agreed for her to continue. Today they allow her to use print colour ranges and designs from the Broadhurst archive as she pleases.
In 2005 Emma used two of the wallpapers to create her first four pictures, only managing one a day at the start. Her first one took 19 hours to complete, very hard on both artist and model , though the work was very difficult, Emma was learning as she went… The second only took 17 hours, though it is much quicker nowadays.
Emma is deeply entwined in her Australian heritage, with a great love and respect for the amazing land and environment. Some of her images are a celebration of the birds and animals of that country, to help raise awareness of the native environment. She painted her own backgrounds for this project as she wanted to not just be known for painted Broadhurst designs, feeling it vitally important that she grow within her art form.
In the past five years, Emma has released a series of Wallpaper works that merge the human form into the Broadhurst wallpaper designs, those gloriously outlandish patterns slavishly recreated on nude models by Emma, before being seamlessly inserted into the Broadhurst original producing stunning illusory images of nude humanity hidden within stylish patterns In 2008, she began to photograph her own works, and now feels this to be complimentary to her body art, creating other visions of the finished image.
Her work, as you can plainly see, is utterly compelling and quite astonishingly beautiful. This hair and make-up artist of 20 years ago has evolved, from painting clothing onto the body and celebrity based calendar body art, to an artistic expression and ability that thoroughly deserves the worldwide reputation and acclaim. This fabulous talent will be with us for a long time yet, and who knows what incredible artworks she will produce? Brilliant.
