Still Life Week: Emily Larsen

Still Life Week: Emily Larsen by Kimberly WithamJuly 27, 2026

©Emily Larsen,“Roost” from the series Beastly

Emily Larsen’s photographs are filled with the type of chaotic exuberance one might not immediately associate with the still life genre. Patterned backdrops collide with flowers, fruit, found objects, and the detritus of contemporary life in compositions that revel in color, texture, and visual play. Larsen embraces the photograph as a constructed object. The artist’s hand is ever-present: cut paper fruit mingles with real produce, and fabricated elements coexist with natural forms. Elaborate patterned surfaces flatten and complicate pictorial space. The result is a joyful tension between reality and artifice, where the familiar becomes theatrical and the ordinary is transformed into something delightfully strange.

©Emily Larsen, “Ancestors” from the series Beastly

My work is heavily influenced by our collective disconnection with nature and non-digital reality, womanhood, and the general absurdity of life. my enduring interest lies in the space between the human experience and shared reality. The intangible fuzzy cloud that allows us to continue forward as we rotate between functional ignorance and the horrors of realization. I reject the banality and sterility of perfection and strive to create images and objects that celebrate the variations and possibilities that reflect our experience. Much of my practice is cathartic, guttural, and reactionary. – Emily Larsen

Emily Larsen earned her B.F.A. in Photography at the School of Visual Arts, NYC. Before fully turning her attention to art she got her B.A. in English, Psychology, and Philosophy at Flagler College.