Internationally-recognized Australian painter, Designer and Illustrator. Britty Em creates bold large-scale acrylic pieces whose symbols and stories charm and challenge viewers through a combination of playfulness, nostalgia, and treatment of serious themes, including loneliness, consumerism, and the unseen facets of everyday life.

Britty’s brilliantly colourful work clearly demonstrates her influences—from her formal education in both fine art and architectural studies, to her upbringing having a mother who was a designer, to her deep love of pop culture. Britty received her Bachelor of Architecture from Queensland University of Technology and her Bachelor of Fine Art from Griffith University. She also has a Diploma in Art Therapy. Britty was born in Canada and at the age of 4 moved to Australia, where she grew up on the Gold Coast. She has lived in Brazil and has travelled widely, thanks in part to her father, who is a pilot.

Painting with acrylic on canvas, Britty renders ordinary scenes in an extraordinary manner—through bold colour choices, working at large scale, and juxtaposing objects and patterns to free them from their seemingly mundane status.

Her process is a liberating one, bringing out the whimsical in everyday scenes that aren’t typically looked at for their vitality or importance. Doing so, Britty invites audiences to be charmed and enticed by what might pass as unassuming. Her recent practice focuses on worlds within worlds where many untold stories gather together. They evoke nostalgic longing for colour-rich Disney-esque fantasy realms. And yet they are suffused with true mystery.

Through a balanced play with colour and concept, with pattern and symbol, with stories within stories, the work taps into a collective consciousness shaped by the longing to return to childhood. As Britty has expressed, she is herself a metaphor for the rooms and scenes she paints. As a child she wanted to escape into the Disney silver screen, to bring it home to her room. Now, she highlights, even if very subtly, what’s wrong with this yearning—and in so doing hints at different ways of being and of relating to the self, to others, and to our surroundings.