For Ottawa-based abstract artist Emma Maddock, art is all about presenting her unique reflections to the world. She draws and paints abstract art pieces at her studio, Oddball Art & Design.
Abstract artists experiment with different lines, shapes, colours and emotions through their art, resulting in different reactions and interpretations from their viewers.
“It’s what the artist’s interpretation of perfect is,” Maddock said. “I try my best to draw something I’ve never drawn before, and I exaggerate it with lines.”
She added her art reflects her personality and view on the world while embracing her “weirdness and uniqueness.”
While studying engineering at Carleton University, Maddock said she expressed creativity mostly through problem solving, rather than art. It was during university, however, that she first doodled a circle with two lines through it, which later became the symbol for her art studio.
“I just kept on drawing it until one day I did this doodle [while sitting] on my bed, and I wrote ‘do first, find meaning later,’” adding she has incorporated this philosophy into her business and personal life.
After graduating from Carleton in 2020, she started an art journal to process the isolation she felt brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. She said being vulnerable in her art helped her better understand her anxieties and place in the world.
“[Her art] tells more of a story and conveys more of a feeling,” Keely Gibb, Maddock’s close friend from university, said.
She then founded Oddball Art & Design in December 2021.
In early February, Maddock was laid off from her day job as a computer engineer due to the ongoing recession. Now, she works at Oddball full-time, and is taking the time to work on her campaign for British Vogue’s Gallery.
From March until May, Maddock will feature her work in Vogue’s Gallery page, which includes their retail website and print edition. While she is required to pay them to have her art featured, she said she sees this opportunity as an investment and hopes to develop an international clientele in return.
Her first painting to be featured in the March issue is called Glue #2, a piece she commissioned for a couple moving to British Columbia.
“I hope that there will be a lot of eyes that see my painting and it resonates with them,” she said.
Katie Miller, Maddock’s close friend and Carleton engineering alumna, said she derives a different meaning from the piece each time she looks at it.
“[Glue #2 is] really interesting to look at and you can look at it for a long time,” she said. “[Abstract art is] thinking about drawing outside the realm of what everybody else sees and drawing more of what you see.”
Miller added she admires Maddock’s ability to translate her unique perspectives of the world into art with personality and vulnerability.
Now that she is devoting most of her time to her business, Maddock said she hopes to have more of her art featured in magazines and museums, and to increase her commissions. Though she feels most creative in her apartment, she said she is also looking to find a studio space outside of it.
“I’m pretty excited about the future in general, and working hard to get there,” she said.
Featured image by L. Manuel Baechlin.
