Ema Shin is a Japan born Melbourne based artist of Korean descent who studied traditional and contemporary printmaking at university in Tokyo and completed a Master of Fine Art degree in Nagoya. She arrived in Melbourne in 2010 as a researcher on a Pola Art Foundation grant. Shin’s work presents body organs and flowers as symbols of her life and emotions. Her work incorporates tapestry, mixed media embroidery, printmaking and paper-mache and presents mental and physical experiences and the fecundity of the female body. Since her first child in 2014 she has combined her arts practice with daily life, working in a home studio to produce works of domesticity that celebrate women’s lives and bodies. Shin aims to create compositions that express sensitivity for tactile materials, the contemporary application of historical techniques, physical awareness, femininity and sexuality.

Shin has exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions over the last 15 years. In 2012 she participated in artist-in-residency at Australian Tapestry Workshop, where she researched tapestry weaving. Shin’s handwoven tapestry work “Soft Alchemy (Lily)” was awarded first prize of Kate Derum Award of small tapestries in 2017. In 2017 she has collaborated with Tamworth embroidery artists to create the work “Devoted Body” which is part of “Open House” 3rd Tamworth Textile Triennial which is being exhibited at eleven venues around Australia between 2017 and 2020. Shin has conducted numerous woodblock print and textile workshops in Australia, Japan, and other countries where she has held artist-in-residency positions.