Biography

Emily Rose is a Puerto Rican-American interdisciplinary multimedia artist. Awarded the 2023 ACTivate residency at the Boston Center for the Arts, Emily Rose exhibited her first iteration of El Salón: Reimagining Self-love, Rituals, and Healing in the Kitchen in the historical Boston Center for the Arts, Cyclorama. In the spring of 2024, Emily Rose will install the first iteration of El Bembé: Celebrating Life and Death en la Sala (The Party: Celebrating Life and Death in the Living Room), part of her three-part recall memory series, Home (coming), during a residency at the Kala Art Institute. She received the Edward Mitchell Bannister National Exhibition: Celebrating BIPOC Artists Award of Merit (2023) and the Copley Society of Art National Show: Crossing Borders grant (2022). Group exhibitions of her work included: ShowUp Inc. (formerly Beacon Gallery), Boston; Essex Art Center, Lawrence; and Stevens-Coolidge House and Garden, Andover, MA; Kathryn Schultz Gallery, Cambridge, MA; The Dodge House Gallery, Providence; The Urbano Project, Boston, MA (2012, 2022, and 2023); Publications of her work can be found in the Boston Art Review and Artscope.

Artist Statement

Art is medicine. My multimedia work emulates the power of memory and storytelling. Since my people have an expansive view of art being in the food we eat, care of family members, music, and celebration of birthdays, unconventional materials and tools are my way of honoring them. Coconut husks, shells, tropical fruit, hidden symbols, patterns, fabrics, photos, and beads often appear. My work addresses colonialism and its impact on the Caribbean diaspora, particularly the transference of ancestral trauma. Through repurposing associated objects of memory and family photographs and conducting oral histories, I evoke imagination, senses, connections, and healing. As part of my practice, I revisit physical and metaphorical spaces through collective memories and dreams to remember and heal the past, present, and forgotten parts of ourselves.

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