EMALIE BINGHAM

(B. 1985, Cape Town, South Africa)

“Imagination gives us a certain sense of meaning, purpose, security and morality. If we can imagine, then we can aspire to something. But to “unimagine” is to be emptied and expect, wait, and hope for nothing in particular. And from that place, a quiet but sincere yearning emerges for something to believe in, until we realise that the longing itself is believing.”

Although Emalie Bingham works across a diverse range of media, drawing has always been foundational to her life and creative practice – a survival technique she developed from a young age. For Bingham, drawing provides both refuge and stimulation, detachment from and an intense connection to the world around and within her. She describes it as the ultimate meditation, enabling her to both accept her limitations and use her practice to transcend them.

Bingham uses pattern-making and surface-design as a medium through which she interrogates societal patterns and conventions. Her paintings are striking compositions created from her hand-drawn designs which are often edgy, satirical, humorous and self-reflexive.

Bingham completed her Fine Arts degree at Rhodes University in South Africa. Her work is represented in the Nando's and the Spier art collections and in many other private collections in South Africa and around the world.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2019         SUMMER, Everard Read, London, UK
Southern Aspect - A Group Exhibition, Everard Read, London, UK

2018         Summer Show, Everard Read/Circa, Cape Town, South Africa
Unimagining, Everard Read/Circa, Cape Town, South Africa 
Summer Show, Everard Read, London, UK
Investec Cape Town Art Fair, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa

2017         Summer Salon Show, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Moving Still, AVA Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Summer Show, Everard Read/Circa, Cape Town, South Africa
Winter Show, Everard Read/Circa, Cape Town, South Africa

2016         Surface/Subtext, Everard Read/Circa, Cape Town, South Africa

2015         Summer in the City, Everard Read/Circa, Cape Town, South Africa
Broken Monsters, Cape Town, South Africa
Homage, Everard Read/Circa, Cape Town, South Africa
Winter Show, Everard Read/Circa, Cape Town, South Africa
Empire, Everard Read/Circa, Cape Town, South Africa

2014         Art on Paper, Kalk Bay Modern, Kalk Bay, South Africa

2013         Surface Interest, Town Hall / Long Table Pop-up, Grahamstown, South Africa
One in a Million, Salon 91 Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Line&Light Collective, One For Another, Cape Town, South Africa
The Benediction of Shade, David Krut Projects, Newlands, South Africa
Too Muchness not Enoughness, Pretoria, South Africa
Forts – Let there be Light, Cape Town, South Africa

2012          I’d Rather Be Swimming, Salon 91 Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Sacred Lakes / Crooked Brooks, Bronze Age Art Foundry, Cape Town, South Africa
Flower Safari, Let There Be Light, Cape Town, South Africa

2011           Strata, Greatmore Studios, Cape Town, South Africa
Independent Publishing Project, Blank Projects, Cape Town, South Africa
Long Table Exhibition, Town Hall / Long Table Pop-up, Grahamstown, South Africa
Absa L’Atelier, Ann Bryant Art Gallery, London, UK

2001         Sculptors and the Animal, Museums of Fukushima, Kirishima, Yamanashi and Mie, Japan
Salon Artuel, Beirut, Lebanon

COLLECTIONS

2014-2018                 

Over this period much of Bingham’s work was bought for both the Spier and Nando’s collections as well as numerous private collections both local and international

AWARDS & INVITATIONS

2013        David Krut: Printmaking workshop – Invited to create a series of work over a week-long period at the studio in Johannesburg

Cape Town Design Indaba: Emerging Creatives program – Awarded an opportunity to exhibit as one of forty “emerging creatives”

​2011        Greatmore Studios: Visiting Artists’ Program (3-month residency) in Woodstock, Cape Town