Master of Fine Arts student Emma Fielden has spent her time at UNSW transforming breath, stone and silver into a poetic body of work now on display at UNSW Galleries.
Emma Fielden’s exhibition The Sky Swallowed a Stone is the culmination of her master’s research. It features three major series: From Breath; a suite of pigment-rich paintings made from crushed stones' and Dialogue, a performance piece created prior to her time at UNSW. Together, they reflect Fielden’s engagement with the physicality of making and the metaphysical questions that drive her practice.
As an artist, Fielden has moved from music to jewellery design and metalsmithing and into performance, expanded drawing and painting.
And while music and metalsmithing might seem worlds apart, for Fielden they are connected by the discipline required to master them – and by their physicality
With music you engage the breath, posture and the materiality of an instrument, similarly metalsmithing is a physical act that engages your body with the materiality of metal, she says.
A flautist, Fielden returned to breath as a medium by crafting an oversized silver flute - the span of her outstretched arms – and using it to draw on canvas. She inherited some silver from jeweller Margaret West, who was the head of jewellery and objects at the Sydney College of the Arts for more than twenty years.
“The silver had been sitting on one of the benches in my studio for a number of years when it occurred to me one day that it was made out of the same alloy that my flute is made out of. A Brittania silver which is a 95.8 pure silver and copper alloy,” she says.
“That afternoon I made a small flute,” she recalls. “After that, I felt compelled to make a life-sized version.”
One of the resulting works, From Breath, was created at the Art Gallery of NSW over seven days as part of the Dobell Australian Drawing Biennial in 2024.
“Each day, for one hour a day, I would play it while circling the canvas. And the drawing is a trace of the performance,” she explains.
The delicate silver traces left by the flute’s movement, capture the ephemeral act of breathing in a tangible form.
In contrast, Fielden’s paintings are grounded in the permanence of stone. Fielden crushed lapis lazuli, malachite, turquoise and spinel, and suspended the crumbled remains in oil to create luminous, layered surfaces.
These works, including the title work The Sky Swallowed a Stone, bring to mind celestial expanses though that was never Fielden’s goal, rather what came out of the process of creating her unique pigments.
“I’ve always had a fascination with physics and cosmology,” she says. It was an interest shared by her father, so there were conversations around the dinner table on the topics.
In fact, Fielden once considered becoming an astrophysicist – she still has a certificate testifying to her work experience at the Powerhouse museum.
“I think those interests have stayed with me and naturally filtered into my practice,” she says.
“My mum is a classically trained soprano,” she reflects.
“The older I get.” she says, “the more I can see how much their interests can be seen in my own, and how they have influenced my work.”
Fielden’s process is one of metamorphosis, not alchemy. Materials retain their essence but shift form – silver becomes sound and mark; stone becomes sky. Her work is guided by a personal logic and honours the legacies of women artists and mentors who shaped her path.
“Listening to the materials” was central to Fielden’s approach. She allowed time for inherited stones and silver to reveal their purpose, ultimately transforming them into works that speak to memory, transformation, and the infinite.
Emma Fielden’s exhibition The Sky Swallowed a Stone is on view at UNSW Galleries, Paddington, until 16 November.