HELLO!

Paper Art creations inspired by land, sea & sky.

The Hinterland Studio is the home of East Sussex based artist Emma Donovan’s pen & ink botanical paintings and paper art installations. Inspired by coastline beachcombing in her East Sussex hinterland homeland and the chaos and pattern found in botanical forms seen throughout her East Sussex homeland and beyond.

Emma’s paper explorations culminate in intriguing paper-cut wall hangings, assemblage landscapes, paper forms molded into botanical or marine life forms or weaved into paper tapestries. Emma often makes her own paper material using snippings and offcuts.

Her process starts with mixing and marking the paper with watercolour, inks and dye that splash, blend or bleed into the paper before marking with other media such as black ink, pastel, chalks salt crystals, soil, sea water or pigments such as walnut extract. Emma loves the surprise or the happy incidental accidents that can come from experimenting and a frenetic work pace.

When she has created something of interest, she then spends time deconstructing the paper either through cuts or scores, before reconstructing them into unique layered, sculptural paper forms and hangings.

Emma also creates smaller artworks, artisan gifts and a selection of greetings cards and gifts. She sells and shows in East Sussex and Kent, Surrey and Bucks.

Emma is also an illustrator, commonly known as Peas-in-a-Pod and also creates cheekily illustrated greetings cards, children's books and gifts - inspired by bold, bright colours and her silly sense of humour.

GET IN TOUCH!

Instagram: @thehinterlandstudio.art

Enquiries: peasinapod11@gmail.com

If you are a business interested in showing or stocking my work please get in touch to request a trade catalogue. For any commissions or licensing enquiries - please email me for further details.

Get in Touch

EXHIBITIONS & EVENTS

2026

RWS Open - Royal Watercolour Society. February 2026. Selected artist ‘Touching the Palms’. Bankside Gallery, London

EFFLORESCENCE - Sussex Contemporary at BN9 Studios, Newhaven. Deflowered Totems installation. February- March

CABINET OF CURIOSITIES - Fishing Quarter Gallery, Brighton 24th February - 1st March

2025
Meander: Land & Sea Exhibition - BN9 Studios Newhaven, March - ‘Whispering Marshlands’

NEW BEGINNINGS, Gallery North March to May. ‘New Light’, ‘January Dusk’ & ‘Whispering Marshlands’

UNDOINGS with Sussex Contemporary at BN9 Studios, Newhaven 14.06 - 06.07 ‘Touching the Palms’

MONTAGUE OPEN 2025 at Montague Gallery, Worthing 14.06 - 29.06 ‘After Monet - Lily pad ponds at Giverny’ and ‘A Glance of Graffiti as I hastily Walk under the Underpass.’

SAY IT WITH FLOWERS, Oxmarket Contemporary, Chichester 24.06 - 06.07 ‘Deflowered Totem’

NEW BEGINNINGS at Pretty Neat Gallery, Brighton 05.07 - 03.08 ‘January Dusk’

WONDERMENT at Victoria Pavilion, Uckfield 11.07 - 13.07 ‘Deflowered Totems’

BUS STOP STUDIOS SUMMER EXHIBITION,St Leonards-on-Sea 14.07 - 31.08 ‘The Day We Went Hunting for Seaglass’

ATELIER OPEN SUMMER EXHIBITION, Brighton Seafront. 29.07 - 14.09 ‘Whispering Marshlands’ and ‘Touching the Palms’

ALTERITY with The Material Collective, Gallery North - October - ‘Deflowered Totems’

OF SUBSTANCE, Gallery North 06.09 - 01.11 ‘Deflowered Totems’ ‘Footprints’, ‘Touching the Palms’ and ‘Out of the Depths’

PRINTWORKS, Blue Monkey Network, Emma Mason Gallery, Eastbourne - August- ‘Footprints’

THE LAND WITHIN with Sussex Contemporary for ArtWave - September ‘The day the Rain came’

2024

ArtSpring Gallery - Emergence Open Call

Gallery North, - Landscapes Reimagined