This week we welcome Emily Abreu De Lima, a Brazilian American artist and designer from Queens. She is currently an architecture student, in her final thesis semester, at Cornell University, where she is exploring festival culture and craft in Brazil. She has exhibited her work in New York City, Ithaca, and Rome, Italy.
She has been commissioned to create multiple murals, including being invited to participate in a city project for the largest outdoor mural installation in Queens (Paseo Park). Over time, she has built a diverse skill set, including painting, sewing, welding, sculpting, woodworking, and digital media, among others.
“I’ve never been able to stick to just one medium. I’m always experimenting with materials such as spray paint, textiles, metal, even discarded objects, picking things up and seeing what they can become. I love working with my hands, learning new crafts, and figuring out how different people, in different places, have developed their own ways of making. They say ‘Jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than master of one.’ I think there’s something beautiful about not mastering just one thing and staying curious and letting the process guide where the work goes,” she writes
“Through various mediums, my work often aims to explore our relationship with the natural world—how we interpret it, shape it, and pass down knowledge through stories, traditions, and techniques. I’m drawn to movement and play particularly through whimsical forms. At its core, my work is about curiosity, transformation, and the ways we make meaning across time and place.”
