This piece was created for The Piccolo Gallery’s commission call, themed 'Hidden', an open prompt inviting artists to interpret the idea in their own way.
The painting shows a cozy Vancouver‑style house hidden behind an overgrown, vibrant garden. Bright flowers, tangled greenery, and climbing vines take centre stage, giving the scene a moody, lived‑in feeling. The more you look, the more the garden reveals, hinting at the gardener and their love of a garden.
This piece speaks to those who appreciate art that feels quietly expressive. Bold colours, crisp lines, and thoughtful details come together to create a character‑rich scene that invites curiosity. Anyone drawn to the quiet stories held within homes and gardens will find this work especially interesting.
Emily's work will be available for purchase at our Community Online Auction in Oct 2026. Purchases help uplift an everyday artist and fuel The Piccolo Gallery’s commission model.
Much of my work revolves around the idea of humans being 'seen' through the spaces they cultivate. Through paint, landscaping, decor and design, people use the most personal spaces in their lives – their homes – to express parts of who they are and what they believe in. When I paint a house or apartment building, I work to capture the small personal details that give the viewer clues as to who might reside inside, but I generally allow the building itself to be the 'star'.
Not so for this piece – the 'hidden' call immediately made me think of this particular shot in my large collection of to-be-painted house photographs. Sometimes the first thing you see when you look at a house is that a gardener lives there; someone who loves and cares for the earth, plants, flowers, growing things. The best gardens are overgrown, the best gardens are mysterious and witchy, the best gardens are wild and developed through a collaboration – not control – between humans and nature. This garden tells us a lot about the owner of this house and their values; it also obscures the house and 'steals the show'. I feel that a lot of sensitive souls (gardeners, artists…) allow their work to stand before them: the thing they have cultivated does the speaking, the work they have done tells you who they are. The rest remains hidden.
Emily Cowan is a multidisciplinary artist based in Vancouver, BC. A lifelong artist, she has been creating works seriously since 2015 and currently works primarily in acrylic gouache paintings. Her mediums also include (but are not limited to) acrylic, watercolour, collage, drawing, zine-making and sequential arts.
Themes of womanhood, queer identity, internalized misogyny and mental health are explored in her renderings of houses, buildings and interior domestic scenes. Growing up, Emily always had a fascination with houses. She suffered from undiagnosed anxiety and crippling shyness, and often felt safest and most herself in her home or the homes of trusted friends. Yet she also internalized the idea that homes were not an acceptable topic of interest for a smart, modern woman, and continues to struggle with what her interest in homes and domestic spaces means for her as a modern independent feminist.
Houses, buildings and rooms - the spaces and places that contain the heart of our lived experiences, continue to fascinate her as she grapples with the opposing concepts of home-as-safety and home-as-status. As the housing and rental markets soar, making home a source of stress rather than peace for many, she hopes to create works that explore this dichotomy and bring stillness to the mental storms that pull her in different directions around this topic.
Emily's paintings feature bold colours, a combination of crisp hard-edge lines and organic forms, and meticulous detail work. She aims to create an immersive experience for the viewer, inviting them to step into these urban and domestic spaces and consider their own relationships to the spaces and places that shape our lives.
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