10+ Years Experience
Emily Moores
Visual Artist
Available For:
Custom Commission, Collaboration, Licensing, Selling Existing Work, Teaching / Residency
About the Artist
Emily Moores is a visual artist living and working in Cincinnati, Ohio. She earned her BFA from The Cleveland Institute of Art in 2008 and her MFA from The University of Cincinnati in 2014. Her work consists of hand-cut and ornately layered materials, which create both wall works and large-scale installations. Emily’s work investigates the playful engagement of the body as essential to understanding and experiencing spaces or objects.In 2025, she created a large-scale installation, Windborne, for the First Financial Convention Center. In collaboration with Artworks, Emily managed a team of 5 apprentices and 1 teaching assistant to create a 6ft x 36ft work of art. With a flowing and whimsical atmosphere, this work brings a sense of joy to the convention center.
Emily was selected as one of the Women to Watch 2020 by the Ohio Arts Council’s Riffe Gallery in collaboration with the Ohio Advisory Group of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She has shown her work nationally, including the Akron Art Museum (OH), the Garrett Museum of Art (IN), the Ruffin Gallery (VA), the Loudon House (KY), and the Edward A. Whitney Gallery at Sheridan College (WY). Emily Moores was a recipient of the Ohio Cultural Arts Individual Artist Award, the Summerfair Individual Artist Grant and the ArtPrize Seed Grant.
Windborne was commissioned to embody the central theme of the First Financial Convention Center: Convergence: Pieces Creating a Whole. Inspired by the organic trajectory of seeds and autumn leaves, the work captures the fluid, unpredictable nature of a gust of wind.
Utilizing layered colors and diverse paper-cutting techniques, the composition mirrors the way natural elements swirl together and drift apart—guided not by their material, but by the invisible hand of the air. As viewers transition through the hallway, the rhythmic arrangement evokes a continuous sense of kinetic energy and flow.
Undercurrent is a site-specific installation that explores the powerful, often invisible kinetic energy of water. While an undercurrent remains hidden from the surface, its presence is felt. This work translates that tactile experience into a physical environment, designed to envelop the viewer completely.
By requiring the audience to physically navigate the gallery, the installation mirrors the act of wading through water. The emphasis on intricate texture ensures that the "movement" is not merely a visual suggestion, but a visceral, felt experience that engages the viewer's entire body.
Child’s Play is a site-specific installation that elevates the spontaneous and uninhibited creativity of childhood. By utilizing a visual vocabulary rooted in traditional youth crafts—including paper chains, intricate weaving, pom-poms, and the serrated edges of notebook paper—the work re-imagines "elementary" techniques as sophisticated artistic elements.
While child-led creativity is often marginalized as a mere developmental milestone, this piece asserts its intrinsic value as a source of profound artistic inspiration. Through a vibrant interplay of texture and form, Child’s Play invites the viewer into a space defined by movement, lightheartedness, and the enduring spirit of discovery.
