Rachel Emberton - Artist CV

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Education

MA Fine Art: Digital (current, 2025-27)
Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
UAL Home Postgraduate Scholarship (Awarded 2025)

BA (Hons) Fine Art (2:1) (2002-2006)
Edinburgh College of Art (then accredited by Heriot-Watt University; now part of the University of Edinburgh)

Bachelor of Nursing (Ordinary Degree)
University of Glasgow, 2014

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Selected Exhibitions

Unfoundations (2025-ongoing)
Ongoing online exhibition and mixed-media project exploring layered analogue/digital processes, honeycomb, and sculpture. Presented digitally as part of a developing virtual archive of works-in-progress. Hosted online at www.rachelemberton.com/unfoundations

Blue Bus Exhibition, Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm, Fife - 2008
Group exhibition in a converted vintage mobile bank.

Collaborative Exhibition with Kirsty Emberton, Pillars of Hercules Organic Farm, Fife - 2006
Presented a large engraved beeswax piece alongside graphite and olive oil drawings on paper.

Degree Show, Edinburgh College of Art - 2006
Graduate exhibition open to the public.

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – c. 2004
Group exhibition while studying at ECA.

Roxburgh Gallery (Roxy), Edinburgh – c. 2004
Group exhibition curated by Richard Demarco.

Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh – c. 2003
Student exhibition; work selected and shown publicly.

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Selected Projects & Work

Unfoundations (2025-ongoing)
Ongoing mixed-media project exploring layered analogue/digital processes, honeycomb, and sculpture.

Cyanotype Studies (2024-25)
Series of botanical and photographic cyanotypes toned with foraged botanicals.

Photogravure Practice (2024-25)
Research and experimentation with Polaroid emulsion lifts, photopolymer plates, and traditional printmaking.

Jewellery & Silverwork (2024-25)
Fine silver jewellery and sculptural forms drawing from Victorian herbaria and Daguerreotype photography.

Flower & Dye Studio (2024-25)
Growing, drying, and dyeing plants for use in artworks and textiles.

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Workshops & Training

Photogravure with Photopolymer Plates
Highland Print Studio, Inverness - 2024
Introduction to photogravure technique using photopolymer plates and traditional intaglio printing methods.

Cyanotype Workshop
Highland Community Darkroom - 2024
Exploration of cyanotype printing techniques and toning processes with botanical materials.

Analogue Photography Workshop
Highland Community Darkroom - 2024
Traditional film photography and darkroom processing techniques.

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Achievements

UAL Home Postgraduate Scholarship - Awarded 2025
Competitive scholarship for MA Fine Art: Digital at Central Saint Martins, UAL London.

Most Distinguished Student Award (2nd Year)
University of Glasgow, Bachelor of Nursing - 2012
Recognition for outstanding academic performance and excellence in nursing placements.

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Professional Experience

Independent Artist & Botanical Grower (2018-Present)
Self-Employed, Scottish Highlands

• Established photographic and print-based practice exploring impermanence through botanical materials.
• Cultivate organic flowers for artistic research and preservation on Highland croft.
• Develop intimate material knowledge through direct engagement with plant lifecycles from cultivation through decay.
• Self-funded practice through independent print sales and dried flower production.
• Research botanical documentation using flatbed scanning, cyanotype, and photographic processes.

Founder, Women's Land Army (March 2020-Present)
Global Online Community (Facebook)

• Founded and administer global Facebook community for women growers (3,000+ members worldwide).
• Created during COVID-19 lockdown as feminist supportive space for women building confidence in cultivation.
• While ostensibly about agriculture and growing, functions primarily as supportive environment for women's knowledge exchange and mutual empowerment.
• Inspired by wartime Women's Land Army: collective action, shared knowledge, women's land labor.
• Self-sustaining community with active daily participation spanning multiple countries.
• Local impact: inspired women in Scottish Highlands to begin growing practices.
• Demonstrates cultivation as feminist practice, confidence building, and community care.

Silversmith & Jeweler (2021-2023)
Self-Employed

• Silver jewelry fabrication including soldering, hand-finishing, and assembly.
• Attachment of findings and construction of wearable pieces.
• Precision making skills and material understanding through metalwork production.

Community Art Facilitator (2020-2021)
Self-Initiated, Online

• Founded and facilitated online art club for local children during COVID-19 lockdown.
• Programme inspired by Grayson Perry's Art Club.
• Developed accessible creative activities for remote participation.

Volunteer Educator (2021-Present)
Local Primary School, Scottish Highlands

• After-school programme facilitator developing unstructured outdoor play and nature engagement.
• Support teaching staff with outdoor education initiatives for primary school children.

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Artist Statement

My practice explores the intersection of digital and analogue processes, botanical materiality, and the documentation of ephemeral natural forms. Working across disciplines - photography, printmaking, drawing, sculpture, and writing - I investigate themes of impermanence, shadow, light, duality, and the relationship between making and recording. Central to this is capturing: capturing light and moment in photography, graphite within wax in encaustic, words on a page in writing. Yet what I ultimately seek to capture is transcendence itself - the experience of making where words fail, where the maker disappears. This is why I make art.

Being an identical twin is central to my identity and practice, shaping how I understand duality, mirroring, and what I call shared vision with my twin sister. This relationship questions the notion of the artist as solitary individual, opening dialogue about artistic identity as collaborative and relational rather than isolated. Living and working in the Scottish Highlands, I grow flowers for artistic research and preservation, engaging with plant lifecycles from cultivation through decay. The flowers I cultivate become both subjects and objects, moving between garden, scanner bed, and photographic documentation. Writing - through slow, contemplative practice and voice notes - captures thoughts that would otherwise be lost.

My work gives voice to voiceless things. Sitting between photography, printmaking, drawing, botanical study, and reflective writing, it investigates time, light, shadow, and transformation.

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References

Available upon request.