Emily Goff’s abstract, mixed-media paintings are inspired by landscapes she has personally known, whether a solar eclipse in Texas, the mountains surrounding her home in Los Angeles, or beaches along the California central coast.  Her work goes beyond observation to filter nature through personal experience.  The paintings often employ a slightly skewed aerial perspective; at other times they channel the low angle perspective of looking upward towards the heavens.  Memory and longing preserve and reshape experiences with the natural world, transforming universal symbols into unique visions.   

By incorporating paper collage and acrylics on Pellon, Emily cuts, rips and splices together fragments to evoke mountain trails, beaches, waterfalls and solar eclipses, resulting in expressions of hope amidst the chaos of current times. Like nature itself, much of the artwork has the appearance of fragility yet it is quite durable, incorporating materials used for exterior murals.  This juxtaposition of seeming fragility masking strength echoes the idea of soft power through quiet steadiness;  a damaged planet that can heal if we allow it.

Emily Goff earned a B.A. in Studio Art from UC Santa Barbara and devoted much of her professional life to teaching art to high school students.  She has been the recipient of several awards and grants for her teaching and community based mural programs in public high schools.  She now paints from her studio in Los Angeles.