Bio

Emma Pinsent is an artist, educator and arts worker originally from Darkinjung lands. Her materially oriented practice investigates porous relations between the built environment and natural ecologies. Guided by encounters during fieldwork and archival research, her projects often take the form of site-responsive installations that reveal latent material, ecological, and industrial entanglements.

In 2019, Emma completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) at UNSW: Art & Design, and in 2022 began a PhD (Art & Design) at the same institution, supported by the Australian Government RTP Scholarship. She has exhibited in group and duo shows in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, and Tasmania, at ARIs and publicly funded spaces such as Firstdraft, Seventh, Canberra Contemporary (Platform), Sawtooth ARI, Gosford Regional Gallery, and Puzzle. She has been a finalist in several awards.

Alongside her artistic practice, Pinsent has held permanent and temporary roles at various public, private and not-for-profit arts organisations, including SAMAG, NAVA, Firstdraft and NRCG (Ballina Shire Council), working across arts administration, exhibition services, curating, communications, membership and public programs. She is currently a sessional academic at UNSW Art & Design teaching Studio Art Practice and Leadership in the Cultural and Creative Industries.

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the diverse lands from which I have lived and worked over the course of my life: the Arakwal, Gadigal and Bidjigal, and Dharawal people. I also acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the coastal beaches and wetlands from which I grew up, the Darkinjung people. I pay my deep respect to their millennia-old stories, culture and ongoing custodianship of Country. I extend this respect to Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty was never ceded. 

Education
2022 - ongoing 
2019

Solo and duo exhibitions
2025
2024

2023
2022
2020

Selected group exhibitions
2025

2024

2023


2021

2019


2018

Awards
2025
2023
2022


2019

Grants, Scholarships + Residencies
2024
2022 (ongoing annually)

2021

Conferences
2023

Bibliography
2025

2024
2023
2022
2019

Curatorial
2021

Writing
2025

2022

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), UNSW Art, Design & Architecture, Paddington, NSW
Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours), UNSW Art, Design & Architecture, Paddington, NSW


mur | mur, with Sadhbha Cockburn, Puzzle, Chippendale, NSW
Somewhere I’ve been, with Gemma Brown, Curated by Niamh Armstrong, Canberra Contemporary Art Space (Platform), Canberra, ACT
A Leaky Exchange, with Billie Baker, Sawtooth ARI, Launceston, TAS
Fouls of the beach, Nextdoor ARI, House Conspiracy, Brisbane, QLD
Matters of Adornment, AIRspace Projects, Marrickville, NSW


The Other Room, Curated by Lucie Loy, Seventh, Richmond, VIC
Futurescapes, Curated by Anna Seymour, Gosford Regional Gallery, Gosford, NSW
MASS, Curated by Daniel Press, Creative Space, Curl Curl, NSW
Unruly Edges, with Eduardo Wolfe Alegria and Ellen Dahl, Firstdraft, Woolloomooloo, NSW Materiality, Curated by Daniel Press, DRAW Space, Enmore, NSW
errant form, Curated by Claire de Carteret and Niko Plaskas, Tiles, Lewisham, NSW
Cool Change (in the middle of a heat wave), Curated by Floorplan Studio, Abstract Thoughts, Darlinghurst, NSW
Is it black and white..., Curated by Claire de Carteret, Stanley Street Gallery, Darlinghurst, NSW
Interior / Exterior, Curated by Sarah-Rose Campbell, TSE-Leigh Capital Corporate Space, Waterloo, NSW
The Annual, 2019 Graduate Exhibition, UNSW Galleries, Paddington, NSW
Dual Bodies, Curated by Sarah Rose, AIRspace Projects, Marrickville, NSW
Home, Curated by YMO Projects, Leichhardt, NSW
Opening, Curated by Fork x Mucusbubble, Flow Studios, Marrickville, NSW


Finalist, Environmental Art & Design Prize, Manly Art Gallery & Museum, Manly, NSW.
Finalist, Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, AD Space, Paddington, NSW
Finalist, Kudos Emerging Awards 2022 (Emerging Artist + Designer Award), Sydney, NSW
Finalist, Tim Olsen Drawing Prize, AD Space, Paddington, NSW
Finalist, Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award, Gallery Lane Cove, Lane Cove, NSW
Finalist, Jenny Birt Award, AD Space, Paddington, NSW


Artist-in-residence, Perennial residency, supported by Arts Tasmania, Art Farm, Birchs Bay, TAS
Australian Government RTP Scholarship, PhD Research, UNSW Art, Design and Architecture
Grant recipient, Bouddi Foundation for the Arts  


Porous matter: re-worlding fouled materials of the intertidal zone through installation practice, AAANZ Conference, Queensland College of Art and Design, Griffith University, Southport, QLD

Loy, Lucie. The Other Room [Exhibition essay], May 2025.
Press, Daniel. MASS: art on the environmental histories and futures of Curl Curl [Catalogue Essay], 2025.
Press, Daniel. Unruly Edges [Article], July 2024, Booker, Issue 3, p. 24
Lehmann, Chelsea. Materiality [Exhibition essay], August 2023. Draw Space, Sydney, NSW.
Kline, Elen. Emma Pinsent: Fouls of the beach [Exhibition essay], December 2022. Nextdoor ARI, Brisbane, QLD
Rose, Sarah. Dual Bodies [Exhibition essay], July 2019. AIRspace Projects, Marrickville, NSW


saplings, Stanley Street Gallery, Darlinghurst, NSW


Pinsent, Emma. ‘Through the hole of a shell: attuning to movements and disturbances across time through walking-with an intertidal zone’. Journal of Visual Art Practice, 2025, 1–16.
Pinsent, Emma. ‘Clare Milledge: Imbás: a well at the bottom of the sea’ [Feature article]. BAM, 2022, Issue 22, 52-55.

© Copyright Emma Pinsent 2026, All Rights Reserved