About Author: Emma Jean Kemp is a sculptor who explores human experience. She sculpts people in motion with the aim to capture moments that define our humanity. Her main portfolio consists of sculptures made in clay, which are then cast into bronze or bronze resin. These works are sold through various galleries in the UK and exhibited at art fairs worldwide.
I’ve recently completed a new sculpture that marks a gentle but important shift in my practice. It’s different from my main body of figurative work—both in material and form—but it’s driven by the same long-standing fascination: how our bodies and what that movement can express.
At first glance, this piece is more abstract. Instead of a clearly defined figure, the sculpture is made from a series of looping lines in steel, that trace the movement of the figure doing a forward flip in the air. The form suggests momentum, effort, suspension—perhaps even a moment of flight. There’s no single body to focus on, but movement itself becomes the subject.
This way of working has grown naturally out of my studio practice. Alongside my bronze figurative sculptures, I’ve spent years making movement drawings, particularly of acrobats, tracing not just what a body looks like but the paths it travels through space. Those drawings gradually moved into three dimensions—first with wire and Perspex, and now steel. Steel has opened up new possibilities. It allows the lines to hold themselves confidently in space while still retaining a sense of lightness and freedom. There’s a satisfying tension in making something that feels fluid and almost effortless, yet is carefully engineered and balanced. The steel work has been hugely challenging, as my design was driven my creativity and not practicality! But with the help of Alastair Burgess, I have learnt how to weld and work with mild steel to create this sculpture, but there is much room for improvement and refinement to create larger version of this sculpture.
For collectors familiar with my figurative work, I want to reassure you: I’m still deeply engaged with the human figure, and I continue to work in clay and bronze. This sculpture isn’t a departure so much as another way of approaching the same ideas—less literal, perhaps, but equally concerned with presence, energy and physical intelligence.
I see this work as holding an entire journey of motion at once, rather than a single frozen moment. It feels like a natural expansion of my practice, and I’m excited to see where it leads next. I am now looking for opportunities to exhibit this sculpture and share with the world.
