The Absent Presence

Emma Bremner is a disabled artist and self-described walking haunted house. Frozen by perfectionism, she abandoned art for a decade before finally receiving medication for her ADHD. Now working primarily in watercolours and metal leaf, Emma paints whimsical scenes of barn owls, armed fairy wrens, tiny mouse knights, her kleptomaniac assistance dog, and her dearly beloved ghost cat. Emma's work explores the intersections of fantasy, joy, and grief experienced in both her own life, and in 2,000-year-old ghost stories.

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This piece is an exploration of the ‘absence-presence’ of grief described by cultural geographer and deathscapes scholar, Avril Maddrell. It reflects on the absence of someone being so glaring that the absence itself becomes a presence. As soon as I read it, I understood the ache of loss for someone who should be there. It took me longer to understand the presence of someone who was absent; that feeling that, while this person was gone, they were still there, just out of sight. The fairy wren in the foreground of this image sits in stark contrast to the three owls hidden in the background, depicted by their negative space. Their presence is as undeniable as their absence.