It’s been a quiet yet transformative year for Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer. The 30-year-old lives in Camaiore, a small Tuscan town an hour from Florence, where she creates whimsical paintings that verge on the surreal—tender yet lonely depictions of animals in familiar landscapes.
Her first solo exhibition, “The Scapegoat,” is now on view in Tribeca, at Sapar Contemporary. It’s a full-circle moment—nearly a decade ago, she interned at the New York gallery, helping hang other people’s paintings. “It was nice to reflect and realize I’ve come a long way since then,” she says.
The doe-eyed brunette’s resemblance to her grandmother Audrey Hepburn could have catapulted her into Hollywood. Her father, Sean, is a film producer, so she grew up in Los Angeles until she was 14, when the family moved to Florence. “I just remember coming alive when I got there,” she says. “It felt like I had been sleeping my whole life before.”
She spent afternoons absorbing the city’s rich Renaissance-art history—transfixed by her favorite painter, Piero della Francesca—and weekends exploring the lush countrysides of Arezzo and Umbria. Hepburn Ferrer graduated from high school in 2012 and had initially planned to attend Central Saint Martins for a Bachelor of Fine Arts. “I had packed my bags for London,” she says, “but when I saw [the Florence Academy of Art], I couldn’t resist.”
She enrolled in the traditional, old-master-focused school’s advanced-painting program. “It wasn’t even a degree-granting program,” she says, “but I wanted to learn that level of control and mastery of technique.”
While at the academy, Hepburn Ferrer got an unexpected call from Harper’s Bazaar editor Glenda Bailey, asking if she would model for the 2014 Icons issue. Michael Avedon—whose grandfather Richard Avedon photographed Audrey Hepburn in 1967—would be behind the camera. Though apprehensive, Hepburn Ferrer agreed.
Hepburn Ferrer landed on the cover. “It kicked off this crazy whirlwind,” she says. She signed with the Storm modeling agency in 2014 and swiftly appeared in campaigns for Dior and Givenchy. But the work left her unfulfilled. “It was great while it lasted, but as a person with integrity, I needed something for myself,” she says. “Painting was what I really wanted to do.”
In 2015, Hepburn Ferrer transferred to the Florence Academy of Art’s off-site campus in Jersey City for her fourth and final year of the program, then stayed in New York after graduating, working odd jobs. She moved between contemporary-art galleries—including Sapar Contemporary—fundraised for a political-arts organization, and worked on films such as The Man in the Attic and “Hell’s Tuesday” on the side. But Italy stayed on her mind.
When the pandemic hit, work in New York slowed and her living situation fell through. During that same period, though, she inherited the family’s summer house, in Camaiore. “I just bought a one-way ticket,” she says, “and never came back.”
Back in Italy, Hepburn Ferrer could once again focus on her art. “I took a breath and realized what space and nature really did for me.” She finally enrolled in an M.F.A. program at Central Saint Martins and visited London from time to time for two-to-three-week residencies. At home in Camaiore, she studied theology and ancient myths, often traveling to local churches to examine Christian devotional objects—busts of Madonnas, crucifixes, and altars.
The Old Testament story of the scapegoat—a goat burdened by human sins and exiled into the wilderness in order to purify the community—inspired Hepburn Ferrer’s latest body of work. “I wonder: Where is God for this animal?” she says. “Does it feel God in its final moments? Is God in nature? Those questions are at the heart of my work and will continue to guide me forward.”
“The Scapegoat” is on at Sapar Contemporary gallery through February 15
Elena Clavarino is a Senior Editor at AIR MAIL
