About
American painter, Emily Langer's artistic journey has taken her from the city streets of Boston where she studied at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, to the rolling hills of Western Massachusetts where she completed her BFA in Studio Art at Mount Holyoke College. Langer is the recipient of a Justine Carrington F. Coe Fellowship and a 2026 Ruth E. Warfel Art Prize. She currently works out of an 1800's farmhouse in rural Central Massachusetts where she lives with her husband and three children.
Artist Statement
When I paint, my canvas becomes a time machine. By using my brush to tap into the intimate spaces of memory and home, I am able to step back into a place that now only exists in the mind. With layers of oil paint in soft color tones of earth and jewel, I convey a nostalgia for a place that we want to return to, or even a longing for somewhere we have never been. Through my brushwork, I explore these dynamic, and often elastic spaces, which are in intimate conversation with the concepts of motherhood, home and time. Thick and textural paint assert the dignity of these reflections, while delicate glazes reveal their fragility. By navigating these themes through paint, I seek to slow down and hold otherwise fleeting moments: expressions of care, familiar keepsakes, comforting routines.
I find beauty in the tension between the constant, forward-march of time, necessary and nurturing rhythms of work and how they converse with the areas of domestic life where we can find rest. Although my artistic expression is deeply personal, it taps into a room of longing in the heart which we all possess: the space of home as both a quiet place of shelter and an ever-evolving archive of family and self. My artwork uses emotionally intimate portraiture and nostalgic vignettes of familiar household items and foods, as well as vintage household surface design patterns, to stretch the concept of home beyond the boundaries of its physical walls. In my paintings, nothing is considered too insignificant to be catalogued as an heirloom of the mind, from a half-finished bowl of cereal, to a violin passed down through generations and across immigration borders.
CV
Emily Langer
b. 1986, Worcester, MA
EDUCATION
2026 Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art, magna cum laude, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA, Frances Perkins Scholar
2008 Culinary Pastry Program, valedictorian, Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, Cambridge, MA
2004 Studio Foundation Year, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA
AWARDS
2026 Justine Carrington F. Coe Fellowship
2026 Ruth E. Warfel Art Prize
EXHIBITIONS
2026, 90th Annual Exhibition of Art and Craft, Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, MA
2026, Duo Exhibition, Love Letters, Blanchard Gallery, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
2026, Art in Bloom, Petersham Cultural Council, Petersham, MA
2026, Best Of, Blanchard Gallery, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
2025, Theme in Yellow, Gallery 13 ArtWorks Gallery, Ware, MA
2025, Becoming More, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
2025, Celebrating the Figure, Gallery 13 ArtWorks Gallery, Ware, MA
2025, Expressions Through Art, Petersham Cultural Council, Petersham, MA
2008, Solo Exhibition, Woods Memorial Library, Barre, MA