Artist: Emily McQueen
Title: Actively Rejecting Fragility
Medium: Block Print and Oil Paint on Canvas
Unframed Dimensions: 30 x 24 inches
Price: $1,000
Artist Statement: Drawing inspiration from 19th-century botanical studies of the Sonoran Desert, this work explores the deceptive fragility and quiet resilience of pinkladies. Energetic lines and saturated hues adopt the formal poise of classical illustration, set against a relief-printed background that brings the front-facing blossoms into sharp focus.
Artist Bio: Emily McQueen is an Arizona-based mixed media artist whose work investigates the dualities of the human experience. Inspired by botanical illustrations of the 19th century, her work features oil painted florals over a background of hand-carved block print patterns, generating a tactile push-pull between meticulous repetition and expressive brushwork. This visual tension directly mirrors McQueen’s decades navigating life as a wheelchair user with a permanent disability, where she finds profound beauty in the coexistence of opposing forces: fragile and fierce, mundane and remarkable, subtle and bold.
