My work is an act of reclamation. As a neurodivergent woman, I create from the parts of myself I once hid, the fragile, fractured, and unseen. Cardboard is my language of survival, torn, weathered, and overlooked; it carries the weight of disposability, of feeling like “not enough.” Steel enters as its opposite, fierce, unyielding, and forged through fire. Together, these materials embody the tension between collapse and resilience, as well as invisibility and defiance.

Fine art works by Jodie Emms showing recycled brown paper: a development piece with a bold oil line.

I do not seek perfection. I lean into the raw, messy, and uncomfortable truths of being. My sculptures are not polished resolutions but living records of struggle, strength, and becoming. In transforming the discarded, I reclaim myself. I honour the quiet strength in imperfection, the beauty in difference, the courage it takes to be seen. My work is not about fitting in; it is about finally being seen. Each piece is an act of healing and resistance, a celebration of authenticity as a radical strength.

Sculpture by Jodie Emms, A mirrored cube sheds its cardboard shell, laying on the floor. The cube’s form represents the pressure to fit a perfect shape. Made of discarded cardboard, it embodies the struggle to conform. It is a celebration of unmasking and seeing myself for the first time, honest and whole.
Sculpture by Jodie Emms, A seven-meter-long line of rusted steel, standing at seven feet tall, bends and curves like a hand-drawn line.