Emil Sands was born in London in 1998, and currently lives and works in New York. He attended Central St. Martins for a Fine Art Painting foundation in 2017 and the University of Cambridge from 2018 until 2022, where he read Classics for his BA and studied for an MPhil in Ancient Art. In 2022, he was then awarded the Henry Fellowship to study Fine Art and Creative Writing at Yale’s School of Art and Writing School respectively. In July 2023 Emil had his first solo show in New York with Tibor de Nagy. His work has also been exhibited in group shows across the UK – at the Crypt Gallery in London, and Mostyn gallery in Wales, most notably. His personal essay Struck on one Side, which focused on his experience growing up with Cerebral Palsy, was published in the March 2023 edition of The Atlantic magazine, along with his paintings. He is currently working on extending the piece into a memoir.
More recently he has spent November and December inMexico City completing a residency at JO-HS in preparation for Encounters, curated by Georgina Pounds (Director, OMR) and featuring a complimentary essay by Eleanor Nairnes (Senior Curator, Barbican).
