Biography
Emma Stocker started her artistic journey in the Pacific Northwest, living in Seattle and attending university in Salem, Oregon. Now based out of Hillsboro, Oregon, her passion for pushing the limitations in the natural world around her still features itself prominently in her work. She was brought onto the Puppet Paint team as a Junior Painter as part of the crew for LAIKA Studios' upcoming film, Wildwood. Within a year she was promoted to a fully-fledged Puppet Painter and was responsible for look-developing, duplicating, repairing, and writing recipes for a number of unique and challenging puppet builds.
While attending Willamette University her work was selected to be shown in two annual Juried Art Shows. These shows included her most recent series Cryptids. After being awarded the Shuchat Fine Arts Grant through her university, she continued and expanded upon the creatures presented in her initial series. Her senior capstone, Retinoculi, was featured in a 2021 show at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem, Oregon.
After 3 years of learning and new challenges from the 3 years of work LAIKA's paint team did on Wildwood, Emma continues her practice on the daily, pursuing to grow her skills in every area and medium of creativity she can find.
Artist Statement
Growing up in the household of a creative family, I have been making art for as long as I can remember. With a seamstress and crafter for a mom and a designer for a dad, I grew up learning from their skills and mentorship throughout every step of my journey. I prefer to keep my work versatile and have worked in practically any medium I can get my hands on. Having always been fascinated with the ability to intersect fantasy with reality, my imagination feeds on the eerie mysterious landscapes of the natural world around me and creates bizarre worlds and creatures to explore in my art. I'm well versed in both traditional and digital forms of art, and have extensive experience creating sculptural works both small and large. I love turning ordinary and affordable materials into things that others can enjoy and create their own stories and realities for.