Emma Coyle
London
[b. 1981 Dublin, Ireland] Represented by Arte Globale, Chrissy Moore Art Advisory, Helwaser Gallery and The Marylebone Gallery.
Message
[b.1981 Dublin, Ireland] Coyle has been progressing her figurative paintings for over 20 years, firstly driven by an influence from America Pop art of the 1960’s. Coyle has been based in London since 2006 and is represented internationally by Arte Globale, Chrissy Moore Art Advisory, The Marylebone Gallery and Helwaser Gallery.
Coyle’s most acclaimed recent exhibition was presented by the Helwaser gallery on Madison Ave. in New York, hosting a solo show of Coyle’s paintings in 2022 titled ‘The Best Revenge’. The exhibition was listed 12th in GalleriesNow’s August Special, ‘The 30 most popular exhibitions on now’[worldwide]. Artnet listed the show in its ‘5 sizzling emerging artists, the Artnet Gallery Network recommends checking out before summer’s end’[worldwide].
Following the book release ‘Emma Coyle Pop Now’ in June 2024 published by Snap Collective in Paris, Coyle was awarded a solo show at Galerie Patricia Kamoun in The Hamptons, curated by Anne-Marie Helwaser.
Coyle has received a plethora of awards throughout her career and is a recipient of International Art Market’s Gold List award. ‘Top international contemporary artist of today', ‘Recommended artist to invest in and to be inspired by’, with work acquired by past Tate Museum Trustee Dame Janet Wolfson de Botton. Most recently in 2025 she was awarded the Collectors Art Prize - Art Legends of Our Time from Contemporary Art Curators Magazine in Dubai, for artists whose art ‘has made a profound impact and is recognized as part of the living history of art.’ Also, in 2025 Coyle was awarded the El Greco – Premio de Las Bellas Artes award from ICM Gestora Cultural in Barcelona, in ‘recognition of outstanding talent, vision and dedication to the arts.’
Coyle’s first education in art in the 1990’s included an introduction to 1st wave New York Pop Art of the 1960’s. As an avid reader, many art genres have inspired her work over the years. Her current figurative work focuses on the use of current print magazine imagery and advertisements, to produce painterly images of a Fine Art quality. She combines primary and secondary line work with ideas in abstraction, minimalism and use of negative space.
Early in her career Coyle exhibited in many galleries in Ireland and exhibited for the Irish National Portrait exhibition, 2005. Coyle also exhibited for charities in the Royal Hibernian Academy and Adam’s Fine Art auctioneers. Just before moving to London Coyle had solo exhibitions in the Signal Art Centre in Co. Wicklow, the Bank of Ireland’s art centre in Dublin. Coyle was described as ‘one of the city’s most promising new artist’ {Metro Life newspaper- January 2006} and was also described as a ‘rising young artist’ {Irish Independent- May 2006}.
Since 2006 Coyle has exhibited in many galleries local to her and internationally. In 2014 Coyle’ work was selected by Los Angeles curator Bridget Carron for her collection Power Pop on Saatchi’ online gallery. In 2018 Coyle’ painting 12.16.07 won the Artness Magazine cover competition and won her an Artist of the Year 2019, a Honorable Mention Award from Circle Foundation in France and an additional Honorable Mention Award from New York’s Grey Cube gallery. In 2019 her painting series ‘12.16’ also won her a Special Artist Award from London’s BESTART.
Coyle’s past painting series ‘Linda’ and ‘Binary’ dealt with embracing and disrupting formal composition. For the first time in 2020 Coyle chose to paint mixed white backgrounds in certain pieces, mixing colours is always very important to each painting. The work earned an online review in 2020 from Dab Art Co. in Los Angeles and an inclusion in their current Artsy exhibition. Also, in 2021 Coyle was awarded a Distinguished Award from Canada’s ArtAscent magazine and a Finalist Award from Los Angeles’ Art Show International.
In 2023 Coyle continued the progression of her work in figurative painting with her ‘Sw16’ series. Painting Sw16.1 received a Finalist Award from Art Show International in Los Angeles in 2022. Again in 2022 her new work won awards from art organizations including Florida’s Light Space Time gallery and additional awards from the Circle Foundation and Grey Cube gallery.
In 2023 Coyle completed a body of fifty watercolour paintings which she spoke about in the February interview with NYC’s Occhi magazine. The series is a result of an intense period of work, to see how the medium of watercolour used in a contemporary manner would affect the outcome of her paintings produced. Coyle continues to experiment with watercolours, oil and gouache on paper.
Throughout Coyle’s career her work has appeared on the cover and within over sixty publications including The Times (UK), London's Mayfair Times (UK), Avari art (USA), A5 (UK), Al-Tiba9 (Spain), M&Art (Sweden) and Visions Libres (Germany) to name a few. Also, on the covers of Level 25 art journal (USA), Emergo (Netherlands), Litro (UK), and Kapa magazine (Greece).
Interviews with the artist have been published in many online and print magazines, including Art Reveal, Murze art magazine, Family Office Elite magazine and Artjobs.com. In 2022 Coyle was interviewed for Yale University Radio in America.
In 2023 she turned her attention to large scale paintings, with a focus to push her studio work further again. Coyle completed painting Collective Selection [1]. A one-year painting project combining three canvases that reached 366cm [144inches]. 2024 saw the completion of a new painting within the project Collective Selection [3], which pushed size limits again with the use of a ten-meter [33 feet] of canvas to complete one painting. Last year Coyle completed her tallest painting to date ’25.02’ reaches 304cm[120inches] in height. 2026-2027 will see new paintings embracing large scale sizes in different formats.
Coyle also continually works on an ongoing abstract painting project, prints and photography using Polaroid and 120mm camera formats. Coyle also works in large scale figurative drawings spanning two meters in height using a combination of art materials including the artists own made charcoal and oil pastel pigments. The idea was to attack the paper with materials [Conte, oil pastels, charcoal, pencils] working vigorously until completion within a short period of time.
Statement
Figurative painting statement:
I have always produced strong imagery working from a Fine Art background and am interested in the technicality of painting. I now choose to use current media imagery and fashion photography as a starting point which is inspired by interests in 1st wave Pop Art from the 1950’s and 1960’s. I feel that my work represents the theme in Pop Art and my interest in taking the theme of using current media imagery and using this in a contemporary context.
In the past I have created series’ of paintings dealing with Japanese advertisements of the 1920’s, Silver Screen film still’s and Fashion photography of the 1960’s. Over the last 15 years my work has evolved with the use of contemporary images which I have used to forward ideas. I am very interested in portraying figures in a contemporary manner. My paintings have been compared to many different art genres, from Realist to Pop Art, Fashion Illustration and even Art Deco.
For my current figurative work I am constantly collecting images from current print magazines, whether I am working on an on-going series of paintings or not. I choose an image which to me is solely strong in form, this is most important for me to produce a strong painting. I am using images which the media choose to represent current times and my choices then represent an interest in strength of imagery not necessarily the subject matter.
Fifteen years ago, it was ever few years when I would carefully select and group images together to start working on preliminary drawings. I now do this every two years so that the images are more relevant to my work to represent what is current, which relates to the Pop Art aspect. I work with groups of drawings for months at a time to manipulate the image and then continue to painting.
The three most important aspects to my paintings are line work, using primary and secondary lines, colour, the mixing of paint, and Composition, using formal or informal compositions. I predominantly work in series of paintings. The numbers of paintings to a series can be anywhere from three to twenty. When I am working on a series, this is when I decide how many paintings will be made. A theme will run through each series without the paintings necessarily looking like they are in a series together. For the series to be completed there needs to be a resolve of an idea or ideas. Throughout my 20+ year career the scale of my paintings has increased. I have worked hard over the past ten years to push the boundaries of scale to increase the impact of my work. I now work in canvases up to 10 meters [33 feet] in length and hight. I will be working on a body of large scale paintings over the next five years.
Although the initial series of drawings may reach up to one hundred drawings, I keep looking at the series of drawings during painting each piece and only choose what I think are the strongest images to turn into a painting.
Mixing paint is very important to the progress of each artwork. I mix my paints in tubs which I have used for many years, these contain left over paint from one artwork to the next, I never use paint straight from a tube. Even the white paint I used contain red, yellow, or brown in its mix.
I am very interested in minimalism, abstraction, strength from line work and deconstructing formal composition. As I work on each image, I minimise details and line. My paintings are more commonly compared to Pop Art because of my use of a black ‘comic book’ line, it is in fact a style inspired by the drawings of Picasso and Matisse, whose use of strong line work firstly captured my attention in the late 1990’s.
From my experiences from living in Dublin, a brief stay in New York City and now being based in London, it has given me the opportunity to find out what mediums and themes I am most passionate about. I have found that using acrylic {which is quick drying} on canvas, allows me to achieve my individual colour pallet.
I have an interest in contemporary artists such as Allen Jones, Diana Al-Hadid, Sara Twomey, Michael Heizer, Abi Joy Samuel among many others. Visiting London exhibitions in galleries and museums which deal with contemporary art, past art movements and cultural history is very important to the production of my work. I find that it allows me to focus on the importance of progressing my paintings and always to push the boundaries of my comfort zone.