Colour, Connection, Continuity: Emma Coulter at Pieces of Eight

For our 20th Anniversary celebrations, we’re honoured to feature long-time friend of the gallery, artist Emma Coulter, whose bold, spatially-driven practice has been woven into Pieces of Eight’s story for well over a decade. Emma has exhibited with us, collected from us, collaborated with director Melanie Katsalidis, and championed the gallery through every era.

To mark this milestone, we’re showcasing eight significant works by Emma, a number symbolic of the gallery’s name and a nod to the ongoing creative dialogue between artist and space. In this interview, Emma reflects on her relationship with Pieces of Eight, her expansive art practice, and her personal jewellery collection.

PO8: You’ve had a long-standing relationship with Pieces of Eight and gallery director Melanie Katsalidis. Can you tell us about how that connection first began, and how it has evolved over the years?

EC: I first met Melanie in 2012, when I was still working in architecture, almost by chance. I’d recently shown work nearby, and after seeing it, the gallery invited me in for a conversation about the possibility of exhibiting. That led to my 2013 solo show, transposition, which brought together in-situ paintings and sculptures alongside a site-specific intervention across the street-front glazing and facade.

It ended up being my first-ever site-specific work, and it opened up an entirely new trajectory for my practice, which at the time was still largely rooted in painting. Developing the facade installation pushed me to consider space, context and perception more critically in my art practice, and ultimately inspired me to apply for my Masters at VCA, marking the beginning of what became my site-specific, or spatial deconstruction, series, which turn developed into the opportunity to work in public art.

In many ways, both my relationship with Melanie and the evolution of my practice grew from that moment. They’re intertwined beginnings, and I am now lucky enough to count Melanie as one of my best friends, two creative kindred spirits and entrepreneurs pushing the way forward into spaces at the edge.

PO8: We’re thrilled to be exhibiting eight of your works as part of our 20th Anniversary celebrations. Can you share a little about the selection? What ties these pieces together or feels significant about showing them now?

EC: The works in this presentation operate almost like an archive of my sculptural thinking. Alongside my painting and installation practice, sculpture is where I actively test new processes, materials and forms. It’s also, in many ways, the most challenging part of my practice, an ongoing set of problems to work through rather than a discipline with fixed answers.

I tend to develop sculptures in material-led series: acrylic, steel, timber, fabric - each medium brings its own constraints and quirks. I’m interested in how those constraints can be negotiated or transformed into something that feels conceptually and formally consistent with my broader practice.

The accompanying small framed paintings sit in dialogue with the sculptures. They’re almost like flattened objects; stacking, balancing, hovering. Even at that small scale, they function more as spatial propositions than traditional paintings. They don’t just hang on the wall; they behave as objects in their own right.

PO8: Your practice spans immersive large-scale spatial interventions as well as more intimate paintings and sculptural works. How does your approach shift when working across these different scales? Is there a common thread that runs through them all?

EC: Conceptually my works are underpinned through an abstract colour language that is applied across my painting, sculpture, site-specific and public art practices. I work in an expanded field, where spatial concerns are at the intersection.

I love the challenge of working at various scales, and upon numerous support structures – architecture, steel, canvas, timber, resolving each problem with an unexpected proposition. Painting is really the element that sits at the foundation of my art-practice, extended through reductive spatial concerns mapped out in infinite colour arrangements.

Whether the work expands outward into immersive human scaled three-dimensional environments or reduces to the intimacy of an object or sculpture, or flattens into a two-dimensional painting, the same conceptual drivers remain: colour as structure, perception as experience, and space as something to be articulated through the lens of my practice.

PO8: Over the years you’ve collected many jewellery pieces from Melanie and the gallery. What is it about her work that resonates with you, and is there one piece you treasure most?

EC: It's no secret that I am a huge fan of Melanie's work! I think our mutual connection and love of architecture and pure geometry connects us, and has drawn me to collect her pieces over the years. I have so many Melanie Katsalidis pieces in my jewellery collection, including the Triangle Mirror Earrings, the Baroque Pearl Drop earrings, her signature gold pearl hoop earrings (those are definitely favourites), the white pearl stacking rings, the pearl cuff bracelet and the rainbow huggie earrings! That’s quite a few pieces now that I think about it! I also acquired one of each of the limited-edition necklaces that she created as part of the Heide 40-year anniversary collection in recognition of the important women who helped shape Heide; Sunday Reed, Cynthia Reed and Mirka Moira. I kept one for myself, and gifted the other two to my sisters who both live interstate in Queensland. Something to connect us despite the physical distance.

PO8: Pieces of Eight has always championed artists working at the edges of craft, art, and design. What does it mean to you to be part of this milestone moment for the gallery?

EC: My work is informed by geometry, colour, form and a sense of spatial interplay, which are shared formal concerns of art, abstraction and architecture. My training and experience in both fields informs my thought processes and visual art outcomes; it feels like an intuitive place for my practice to exist.

So being invited to participate in the gallery’s twenty-year celebration is meaningful, not just sentimentally but also conceptually. Pieces of Eight has consistently advocated for artists who occupy these in-between spaces, often long before the broader art world recognised their value. To have my work positioned within this milestone feels significant, an acknowledgment of both the history of the gallery and the critical conversations my practice is part of. Twenty years is such an important milestone to celebrate, and I wish Melanie and the Pieces of Eight team every success for the next twenty years and beyond. I can’t wait to celebrate!

Emma Coulter’s featured works are now on view as part of Pieces of Eight Gallery's 20th Anniversary. Visit us at 28 Russell Place, Melbourne, to experience these vibrant, spatial compositions in person and explore the creative relationships that have shaped our two-decade story. All works are available for purchase.