Emma Levitt Royer

Emma Levitt Royer is a multidisciplinary visual artist. Her recent work employs the techniques of knitting, weaving, and sewing as means to consider the delicate, intimate and imperfect texture of our ordinary experience. Emma comes from a long line of knitters and needle pointers. The women of her family, who are otherwise rocketed by energy, find a way to be still, to cultivate calmness, and to pass time with this constant binding. They take longs lines of fiber and concentrate time and attention and love into hats and mittens, sweaters and blankets that warm and protect those they hold close. In 2013, Emma experienced the death of her partner and adopted this familial ritual to experience her grief. For 18 months, she cut apart and unraveled his clothing and then knit all of it back together, creating a tapestry from the garments that bore the memory of his space. This experience began a fascination with fiber and fabric; the meaningfulness of objects that we touch on a daily basis; and, an interest in labor as a component of her artwork.

Emma has exhibited at the Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, The University of New Mexico Art Museum, Bellevue Art Museum, and Gallery4Culture in Seattle, WA. She has been honored with a 4Culture Individual Artist Project Award and was an Artist-In-Residence at the Jentel Foundation and the Vermont Studio Center. Emma earned an MFA from the University of New Mexico and a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis.

Emma received 2019 GAP Award funding in to complete a body of sewn paper and textile works for exhibition in 2020. This valuable funding will enable her to install a real heater in her garage studio so that she can continue to work through the winter months in order to meet this goal.