emma fineman

the genesis project

The Genesis Project is Fineman’s first ever fully immersive painting- a chapel of sorts. It offers a retelling of Genesis and The Garden of Eden narrative, to delve into the ways in which the story of the Eden was twisted. Perhaps Eve’s relationship to the serpent wasn’t an act of corruption leading her and man to ruin, but rather her greatest strength- her intrinsic relationship to the rhythms and knowledge of the natural world.

I reached out to emma having found her work online and proposed we create a performative film together at the porthmeor studios in st ives, with her paintings as the inspiration and landscape. We were inspired by the films “The Color of Pomogranites” and “Meshes of the Afternoon” and wanted to make a film that evoked a similar sense of the surreal from these titles, a feeling of the nature of the painting itself rather than the standard artist in studio videos we had grown accustomed to. With very open minds and hearts we spent the day together, where emma carried on working on the final stages of the painting and then we went out to the cliffs of Porthmeor and spoke about queerness, relationships, death, and living in the memory of loved ones we had lost.

Fineman's vision for The Genesis Project is that it would become a sanctuary in its final form. A place for orators, choirs and performers to express their souls and share them with the public. we are in the process of creating this now. the final film and series of images will be shared upon the projects completion.