Episode 12: How to Be Hot Pink with Emily Burkhead

Emily Burkhead is an intermedia artist whose work blends 3D printing, found materials, and surrealist filmmaking.

Despite not having formal artistic training in her undergraduate years (she has a social science degree), Emily pursued an MFA where she developed her distinctive style featuring vibrant hot pink colors and varied textures. Her thesis project, "Trigger/Glimmer/Something Else," became a powerful exploration of her queer and neurodivergent identity. Emily was drawn to hot pink as a "dopamine inducer" that felt forbidden because of how society had conditioned her to view it as childish, trashy, or garish. Her work creates a visual language that communicates her neurodivergent experience - with yellow elements representing sensory triggers (like "wet socks" or "Ed fucking Sheeran") and hot pink representing sensory "glimmers" (like "weighted blankets" or "my nephew's laugh"). Though she sometimes struggled to verbalize her artistic intentions in graduate school, Emily found that her work allowed her to express feelings that are difficult to put into words.

We talk about her character "Miss Bubblegum," a surrealist film persona Emily created inspired by feminist filmmakers like Mika Rottenberg, which captures the disorienting experience of being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. Emily shares how her creative partnership with her filmmaker partner Henry works, and we talk about the complexities of being in a relationship with another artist. She discusses her challenging experience in graduate school, including nearly dropping out before finding validation through community and peers who shared similar identities rather than just from professors. Emily explains her attraction to early 2000s childhood themes in her current work, finding that art is one of the only ways to synthesize the strange nuances of childhood experiences.