Emmanuel’s work explores the object and materiality of painterly images, using the language of painting while examining its relationship to textiles, sculpture, printmaking, and architecture. His practice considers the painterly image as a point of departure to explore themes of home, loss, displacement, belonging, memory, and identity politics. He investigates the tensions between visibility and invisibility, presence and absence, often using layered surfaces and fragmented imagery to evoke what lingers beneath or beyond immediate perception. Other guiding ideas shaping Emmanuel’s practice include collaboration, plasticity, memory, and movement.