Emma Prempeh (b. 1996) is a British artist with Ghanaian and Vincentian heritage based in London. The starting point to Prempeh’s paintings is the matter of blackness – the tonal properties of the colour establishes the ground to her paintings and a cinematic basis to invoke and project memories of events, people, and places to emphasise an appreciation of ancestral time and relationships, selfhood and transformation. Schlag metal, a brass alloy of copper and zinc imitative of gold leaf, is a material that Prempeh applies to selected areas of her often large-scale paintings. Over time this oxidises creating slow, live visual changes that animate the image and create a meta-narrative around our experiences of the passing of time, memory and its representation. Prempeh occasionally experiments with projected still and moving imagery to create painting installations that invite other experiential and performative encounters with her work.

Prempeh earned a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmith University (2019) and an MA in Painting from Royal College of Art (2022).

Solo exhibitions include ‘In Presence and Absence’, Ordovas Gallery, London (2023); ‘You Were, You Are and You Always Will Be’ Tiwani Contemporary, Lagos (2022); ‘In and Out of Time’, Ada\Contemporary Art Gallery, Accra (2021); ‘Raise Your Glass’, The Lightbox Gallery And Museum, Woking (2020); ‘The Faces of Love’, V.O Curations, London (2020). Her works have been exhibited at Stephen Friedman Gallery, Mayfair, London (2023); Gallery 1957, Accra (2023); Tiwani Contemporary, Frieze No.9 Cork Street, London (2023); Home By Ronan Mckenzie, London (2022); Pi Artworks, London (2022); Gillian Jason Gallery, London (2021); Ada\Contemporary Art Gallery X Hofa Gallery Mayfair, London (2021); Droog Gallery, Amsterdam (2020); South London Gallery, London (2019); Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds (2019). 

Prempeh has been awarded the Valerie Beston Artist Trust Award (2022), Leverhulme Trust Arts Scholarship (2020), Space Studio Bursary Award (2020); Ingram Collection Young Contemporary Talent Purchase Prize (2019). She has been artist-in-residence at Afropocene StudioLab (2024), Tiwani Contemporary Guest Artist Space Foundation (2022); Ada\Contemporary Art Gallery (2021); and V.O Curations, London (2020).

Emma Prempeh is represented by Tiwani Contemporary.