Emily’s work references home and domesticity to explore how we construct and navigate identity. The architecture of home reflects the structures, both physical and metaphorical, that shape our lives. Her work evokes a sense of nostalgia, memory, and a dream-like quality through unexpected scale and traditional craft. 

This exhibit includes pieces from her series of ‘Dream Home’ paintings. Inspired by 20th century kit homes and plans that were manufactured for accessible home ownership and designed for ‘good living’, these paintings are built in layers of transfer, acrylic, screen print and oil paint. Areas of luminous color contrast with flatter paint strokes, confusing what is painted and what is transferred. The homes are floating without foundations in unfamiliar landscapes. Some houses are surrounded by a round portal or porthole, rendering them as something viewed from afar or through a glass darkly. They reflect the promise of the ‘American Dream’ that has only been accessible to some and increasingly elusive. 

Other works in the show take familiar domestic motifs and present them in an unexpected context through the use of scale, material, and construction. They conjure up personal histories and family myths. 

Emily Bicht is an artist and educator living in Peekskill, NY. The domestic space is a recurring setting for her work. She employs painting, sculpture, printmaking, and installation to explore underpinning social constructs and structures. Her functional ceramic work is created for use in everyday rituals. Emily has been an active artist for over twenty years and a member of several artist groups, including The Exhibitionists and Open Ground. She has been awarded residencies at Byrdcliffe and Arts, Letters, and Numbers. In 2020, she received a Queens Council for the Arts New Work Grant. She teaches ceramics at Cedar Lane Arts Center, Garrison Art Center, Peekskill Clay Studios, and the Adams School of Art. She is renovating her own almost-century home with her partner and two cyclones.