Emma Webster

Emma Webster (b. 1989 in Encinitas, California)

Emma Webster graduated with her BA from Stanford University in 2011 and received her MFA in Painting from Yale University in 2018.

Solo exhibitions include Petzel, New York (2025); Perrotin, Hong Kong (2025); Perrotin, Paris (2024); Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2023); Perrotin, Dosan Park, Seoul (2022); Stems Gallery, Brussels (2021); and Alexander Berggruen, New York (2021). Group exhibitions include Petzel, New York (2023); Max Hetzler, Berlin (2023); Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (2022); Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego (2022); among others.

Webster’s work is part of various public collections around the world, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Florida; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, California; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami, Florida; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio; Xiao Museum, Rizhao, China; Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China; The Warehouse, Dallas, Texas; and the Groeninghe Art Collection, Bruges, Belgium.

In 2024, Webster published her eponymous monograph, published by Perrotin, and in 2021, Webster published Lonescape: Green, Painting, & Mourning Reality, a collection of musings on landscape and image-making in an increasingly digital world.

Emma Webster lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

“I want to liberate painting and bring the conversation back to the image instead of the art object and emotion. I want to trust in the viewer and give them as much information. Vulnerability is great. We need ugliness, poor taste, and bad decisions sometimes. It’s humanizing and crucial. Even in my practice, there’s the refinement of the sculpting and the lighting and the image. But at the end of the day like, I do want there to be flaws. I don’t trust art without flaws. Where’s the process?”

—Emma Webster