Artist, dancer Emily Munk marries human emotion, nature
Artist Emily Munk with art piece titled "My, The Love of You."
The paintings Emily Munk creates are impressionistic and abstract mountain landscapes.
Emily Munk and her art piece titled "Everest."
Artist Emily Munk sells illustration prints of “these cheeky monsters that I've created from emotive ideas, ideas of philosophy visualized, and that in-between space where people and nature connect."
Artist Emily Munk dances, paints and illustrates to understand the human experience.
Artist, dancer and illustrator Emily Munk currently dances and choreographs with Ogden MoveMeant Collective and creates eclectic artwork with acrylic, oil, watercolor and colored pencil.
"Monster No. 9a" by Emily Munk.
"Powder Mountain," by Ogden-based artist Emily Munk.
Artist Emily Munk dances, paints and illustrates to understand the human experience, especially her own.
"Most often, it is difficult for me to put into words how I feel internally. I understand the world in images and movement," she said.
Always a creative person, for she believes there is not often a line of demarcation signifying a start, Munk says she's been making art and choreographing dances since she was young. Intention and seriousness grew while she took private art classes starting at age 9 and then going on to take weekend classes as a teenager at Herron School of Art in Indianapolis. She sold her first art pieces while in high school.
After studying dance in university, she continued to perform and choreograph in various places around the country. She currently dances and has choreographed with Ogden MoveMeant Collective, Ogden's local modern dance company that The Monarch often hosts.
As for her visual art, her mediums and subjects are often eclectic in acrylic, oil, water color and colored pencil.
Inspired by human connection and nature, and the relationship between the two, Munk seeks to explore how nature affects our mindset, our joy, our lack thereof, and what we are doing to seek or destroy our own joy as it relates to our environment.
Currently, Munk sells illustration prints of "these cheeky monsters that I've created from emotive ideas, ideas of philosophy visualized, and that in-between space where people and nature connect."
Other prints are of endangered species, and a percentage of the profit is donated to charities fighting to save plants and animals.
The paintings Munk creates are impressionistic and abstract mountain landscapes. She describes this series as an opportunity to dive deeper into herself, bringing raw vulnerability to a visualization of the human experience. On Facebook, Munk describes her process for a beautiful painting of three mountain peaks, the outer two hugging the middle:
"I started this painting as a way for me to dig in deeper to understand my feelings for someone dear to me. It took me months to finish as I would paint a thin layer of oil paint and stare at the progress for days considering my feelings, the aesthetic quality and how I wanted to continue building. Some days, I would play loud music. Other days, I would paint in silence to really listen to that muse. Painting became a meditation on these occasions. I wanted the center mountain peak to be hugged by the other peaks -- by love, tenderness, loyalty and gratitude. I wanted to show, with green tones, the abundance that love springs internally.
"My, The Love Of You" is a love sonnet, an ode to all the nourishing things -- to romantic love, to soul-mates, to nature, to the complexity of ecosystems. It seems to me these things are connected. If we feel love within ourselves, we will naturally direct that love outwardly to others and our environments. Abundance begins within."
Desiring to share this abundance, Munk will be starting beginning, intermediate and advanced art classes this fall. She will be teaching her participants not only drawing and painting skills but also teaching creativity, collaboration and art history. "It is important to me that my students leave my class feeling fulfilled, that they've grown as artists and humans," she says.
Follow Munk, buy her prints and sign up for a class @em.munk on Instagram or @Em Munk on Facebook.