Featured Artist: Emma Starkey

In Liminal Light

M I L O S T K A C E N T E R F O R E X H I B I T I O N S

Image of the artist Emma Starkey. Provided by Emma Starkey

Based in the United Kingdom

Instagram: starkey.emma

Biography

Emma Starkey is a provocative and fearless voice in contemporary art whose work challenges traditional notions of artistic prestige, access, and institutional authority. Rooted in disruption, her practice actively confronts the exclusionary practices of white cube and blue-chip gallery spaces. Through interventions inspired by the Situationist tradition, Starkey’s work not only occupies space—it interrogates it. Her pieces serve as critical responses to the structures of whiteness and cultural elitism that often define the art world, creating tension that is both intentional and transformative.

Starkey approaches her art-making as a form of activism, positioning the artist as an agent of societal change. Her works blur boundaries between performance, installation, and conceptual critique, seeking to open and reframe the spaces they inhabit from within. This method is not only political but deeply personal, emerging from her ongoing negotiation with the art world's unwritten rules and coded language.

Educated in the UK, Starkey earned her BA in Fine Art from the University of Worcester and was awarded a scholarship to study at Central Saint Martins, where she completed her MA in Fine Art. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including in China, Brussels, London, and throughout the United Kingdom.

Artist Statement

The sacrifices my mother made—the financial strain, the love threaded through limitations—

speaks of Pierre Bourdieu’s discussions of cultural capital and the challenges of navigating creative expression within socio-economic constraints. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus parallels my reflections on embodied memory; the idea that our lived experiences are inscribed into our physical and mental selves. This inscription influences not only our

movements but also our way of being in the world.

Through movement and material, I investigate catharsis, similarly to Ana Mendieta’s use of the body as a medium to express identity and release.

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Flounder: Against The Tide

Artist: Emma Starkey

Media: Digital Cinematography

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View more of the In Liminal Light down below!

VIEW EXHIBITION HERE

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Interested to know more?

Check out our Catalog

Catalog is available for purchase in print and digital download

View the catalog on the exhibition page, and see all exhibited works, artist statements, and artist bios. Catalog are available for purchase in print (worldwide shipping) or for digital download! 100% of proceeds go to our Artist Fund for arts accessibility to keep exhibitions free!

VIEW OR PURCHASE CATALOG HERE

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Culturally Arts Collective

Socials: @culturallyarts

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok

Email: culturallyoffice@gmail.com

About

Culturally Arts Collective, an international serving nonprofit organization, works for tangible reform for arts accessibility and representation through education, exhibition, outreach, professional development, and consulting.

We work to cultivate a culture of artistic innovation upholding the academic integrity of the arts, uplifting contemporary expression, and challenging the status quo.

We want to give artists the opportunity to express their own ideas and viewpoints, creating an experience that expands horizons by bringing together diverse ideologies.

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