Emma, who focuses her work on environments undergoing dynamic change, has exhibited internationally and in private and public collections including London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.
Emma’s recent projects include working with the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the Scott Polar Research Institute and an expedition to Svalbard in the Arctic Circle. She has also collaborated with the University of Bristol’s renowned volcanologists on a project exploring Creative Destruction.
Emma, elected to the Royal Academy of Arts in 2013, said the award came as a surprise.
Bristol’s Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Hugh Brady, presented Emma with her award: “Great artists change how we see the world around us, how we think about what we see, and how we experience it. They make us think by deploying what they see to enlarge our awareness of what affects us most directly as sentient beings.”
Emma Stibbon is one, he said, an internationally acclaimed artist whose work “is profoundly important to our own understanding of the time we are living in, of the planet we live on, and of what is happening to it. If art exists to make us aware of ourselves and our environment, then Emma Stibbon has much to teach us. She is an artist of, and for, our time.”
Professor Brady said Emma can “hold her own” in the company of the country’s greatest artists including William Turner.