Her major preoccupation is the troubled relationship between contemporary human cultures and the planet: to somehow bridge the crevasse that exists between western technology with its current predominant values, and find a closer alignment with the health and well-being of the planet: whole of the rest of the world, the people, the eco-systems, the land, the seas and the sky.

The natural beauty, history and energy of material stone, including its capacity to embody human consciousness, can endure into the future of a vast unknowable universe. The worked stones become a part of the past and the future of the planet, embodying consciousness.

The sculptures have unique characteristics due to each individual stone’s geological history. These carvings invite the viewer to comprehend a commonality across deep time, geography and cultures. The use of traditional carving skills – allied with technology where necessary – allows her to produce timeless works which marry the contemporary with the ancient. The work manifests a poetic, serious and unique presence.

Young’s work is in important public and private collections throughout the world. Emily Young has studios in Italy and Dorset, with a gallery space in London.

Emily Young was born in London into a family of writers, artists, politicians, and naturalists. Her grandmother was the sculptor Kathleen Scott, who worked with Auguste Rodin, and her uncle Peter Scott, was a founder member of the WWF in 1961.

As a young woman, she worked primarily as a painter, studying briefly at Chelsea School of Art, Central St Martins in London and Stonybrook University, New York.

She left London in the late 60s and spent the next years travelling widely, studying art and culture.

In the early 1980s she started carving stone, preferring to use discarded materials from abandoned quarries, and more recently finding local stones from the hillside where she works.