Emma Garay
2025 FellowEmma Garay creates paintings centered on the emotional weight of everyday life. Her work focuses on human connection, memory, and the relationships that shape people across generations. Raised in Southern California, Garay first pursued the arts through classical ballet before turning fully toward painting. Her interest in traditional realism developed through work alongside Chapman Hamborg before continuing her studies at the Florence Academy of Art beginning in 2019, where she became a graduate-in-residence in 2023. In 2025 she relocated to Seattle to join the Seattle Prize Fellowship, where she continues to develop narrative figurative paintings inspired by travel, observation, and the…
Seattle Prize work
Made during the fellowship. Where the process was shared, a painting opens to every stage, from first sketch on.
The Animus (Self-Portrait)
Finished · 4 stages
The Veil Between
Finished · 7 stages
Tender Keeper
Finished · 2 stages
Beholden Beauty, Portrait of Colette
Finished
Copy after John Singer Sargent
Finished
Pause Between Movements
Finished · 2 stages
Earlier work
From the portfolio: work made before or outside the fellowship.