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About Emily Drew Yates

Painter, illustrator and mapmaker Emily Yates is best known for her colorful, joyous artworks in acrylic, watercolor and mixed media – paintings and maps celebrating the magic and mystery of the natural world, botanicals and reverence for the great outdoors.
Emily spends lots of time making things and continues to go back to art and creating as a comfort. Observing nature and its creatures - seeing the language of a universe that is alive - is a constant inspiration.
She’s also created a series of watercolor maps as a tribute to the wonderful public lands (and the plants and animals they support) explored in her 20-year career as an ecologist and seed conservationist. Revisiting the beauty of these places with watercolor and calligraphy promotes reverence and noticing, allowing others to be inspired, to enjoy, and take action for the preservation of natural places and the life around them.
Emily grew up in the tiny southern Illinois town of Elkville, currently makes her home in Illinois and has recently shown her work at ArtSpace 304 in Carbondale, the “Microcosmic” Art in City Hall exhibit in Highland Park, Illinois and at the 276 Art Exchange in Equality, Illinois.
Emily spends lots of time making things and continues to go back to art and creating as a comfort. Observing nature and its creatures - seeing the language of a universe that is alive - is a constant inspiration.
She’s also created a series of watercolor maps as a tribute to the wonderful public lands (and the plants and animals they support) explored in her 20-year career as an ecologist and seed conservationist. Revisiting the beauty of these places with watercolor and calligraphy promotes reverence and noticing, allowing others to be inspired, to enjoy, and take action for the preservation of natural places and the life around them.
Emily grew up in the tiny southern Illinois town of Elkville, currently makes her home in Illinois and has recently shown her work at ArtSpace 304 in Carbondale, the “Microcosmic” Art in City Hall exhibit in Highland Park, Illinois and at the 276 Art Exchange in Equality, Illinois.