Hi, my name is Emma Davies and I'm a multimedia artist based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Most of my work is in oil paint or digital art, but I also write, sculpt, sew, and any other forms of craft you can think of. I’m obsessed with bright colours. I paint primarily in a CYMK colour palette, which allows me to create a greater variety and saturation of colour.

On this website, you can find my blog, an archive of my work, and links to my online shop.

In 2024, after suffering from perfectionism, anxiety, and depression for my entire life, a psychic told me it was my destiny in life to make lots of mistakes. Knowing this about myself became a permission slip to make mistakes. It released me from my worry that I was doing everything wrong; after all, if I’d make mistakes anyway, it made no sense to try and avoid them. Instead, I began to enjoy them.

I started the Fucking Up On Purpose project, an instagram account centered around experimentation, bright colors, and being messy on purpose. In April 2025, I decided officially to pursue becoming an artist. And in August, I moved into a basement studio at queer community center KLUP. I am currently working on my first exhibition.

The Fucking Up On Purpose project is for anyone that’s been afraid to make a mistake. Afraid to act. Afraid to make tiny decisions. Perfectionistic. Anyone that identifies with gifted kid burnout syndrome. Anyone with autism or ADHD. Anyone that’s (been) suicidal. 

The Manifesto

My friends call me Persephone; my patron Greek goddess. She spends half the year on Earth with her mother Demeter, and half the year in the Underworld with her husband Hades. The cycles of life and nature - moon cycles, seasons, menstrual cycles, emotional waves - inspire my art deeply. Nothing in nature moves linearly, and the ups and downs of life will always keep coming. Even light and colour are, at their core, just wavelengths with peaks and valleys. When we paint in color, we are painting in highs and lows, and we are honouring the diversity of life. It is up to us to find beauty in them.

We can see our Universe as an infinitely changing and expanding painting-story-movie told by God. Stories are not interesting without conflict and tension; and as such, we can never cure or avoid suffering. May we then enjoy our suffering and the stories it tells. May we see God as the ultimate sadomasochist and surrender to the plan.

God communicates directly through symbols. The pondering of symbols can show us secrets of life hidden in plain sight. This is the aim of my art: to weave stories and symbols into vast tapestries that can change a person. I create paintings you can get lost in for hours, find answers in, and come away a changed person. I am not interested in the mundane. I am interested in the secrets of life.

May we destroy only as God does when She runs her sharp scissors through the fabric of space and time to sew a beautiful dress. May we see perfection in the messy, the broken, the fucked-up. May we fuck whoever we want, may we love a lot and touch a lot. May we create bubbles of safety outside the false limits and idols of late-stage capitalism! May we create new realities without needing to destroy what came before. May we reclaim land for Mother Earth and begin a new movement, a movement of self-sufficiency, of imperfect creation, of love. Platonic love, love for Earth, love for life. Love for poetry and art. Love for work, done not for the bank account of the patriarch, but done for love of humanity, for love of Self.

This is a queer-centred project, and it is always my goal to encourage authentic expression.