Emily Elder Cramer is a Kansas City-based artist currently working in oil paints on stretched canvas. She graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Set Design. Emily began her career in theatre, painting and designing sets for more than 13 years with several local theatre companies around the KC metro before transitioning to a more personal form of artistic expression. Although she still enjoys painting large-scale outdoor murals that are reminiscent of the sets she painted for plays and musicals earlier in her career, her current work refocuses her energy on a different kind of storytelling, leaning on her strong theatre roots to explore narrative imagery that communicates her unique journey and experiences, both literal and figurative.

Emily’s paintings are a reflection of the human struggle to find value, acceptance, faith, and hope. The scenes she creates explore themes of transformation and renewal, capturing moments that are undefined by time, allowing her audience to feel seen and heard. Her work draws inspiration from both Romanticism and Surrealism. Artists such as poet and painter William Blake believed that senses and emotions are just as important as reason and order in understanding our world. Like the modern surrealists, her art balances a rational vision of life with a voice communicating the unconscious mind, conveying dreams, visions, and hidden memories that challenge her to grow as a storyteller and embrace vulnerability as an artist.

Presented in partnership with the Department of Arts & Humanities.