Biography: Emma Klingbeil was born in 1982 in one of the many small rural towns in Central Wisconsin, three hours away from any "real" city. She spent most of her childhood immersing herself into art, later as a disgruntled pre-teen, turning more toward the macabre; twisted bunnies, etc. Later after moving back to her home town in Wisconsin from a few year spell in Nashville, TN, she opened her own studio downtown called "Cocoon Arts" where new work started to immerge.

She now lives and works in Wisconsin as a full-time artist, part-time cake decorator.

Artist Statement

In Nashville, my work got pretty girly, with a bunch of nudes on gold leaf, more of a focus on anatomy. After coming back home it got even girlier. I tried my hand at painting on huge canvases with figures from the '20s, mostly relatives long gone, and loading every millimeter with glitter, sequins, whatever sparkly thing I could get my hands on. That lasted awhile, but the series didn't really ignite my spark. I've always loved the odd, and a little disturbing, but I wanted it pretty too.

With my online business happyhourhousewives.com I was getting more and more into vintage 1950s housewives, and pin-ups. I finally found my combination of girl vs. strange! I began painting these vixens in the middle of strange wastelands and warped creatures. I took a lot of reference from some pretty bizarre dreams, and wanted to make these girls beautiful and belonging to these fantastic lands full of monster octopi, snakes, whatever crawly thing I could imagine, and somehow make them cute as well, with that edge of creepiness. 

Artist Gallery

Click on any of the below images for a larger view:

Comments (2)

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laura said:

i love the artwork--it's twisted and gorgeous and endearing and unsettling all at once...very cool

July 02, 2007

andee said:

I was glad to come across this site will searching the web. We miss Emma's influence in Nashville. Nice cover Emma...great work!

July 15, 2007

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