Ember Fairbairn has based herself primarily in Melbourne and Queensland, satisfying her love of contemporary culture and the need to be immersed in remote parts of nature. Fairbairn’s practice focuses primarily on painting and she holds a Masters in Contemporary Art. Ember is based in the Yarra Valley.

Her exhibiting history spans from 2001 in both solo and group shows in artist run spaces and commercial galleries in Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore and New York. Awards include The 2020 Athenaeum Club visual Arts Research Award (2020), Gogo Art Series Award (2019) , Art150 Travelling Scholarship (2019), The Ravenswood Art prize for women (Finalist). Residencies include Montsalvat Art Centre and Yea Arts Festival.

'Within Fairbairn’s painting practice is an influence of nature, where she explores the metaphysical philosophy of ecology and her own body. The result is something akin to art as meditation; each consideration of process, colours, gestures playing out until the artist finds a resolution. The works reveal themselves in active gestures or layers of paint. They reveal a belonging, connecting Fairbairn’s time in the landscape, and evolving within nature. Spending time in nature becomes a meditation on being present in the moment, a feeling that comes through in her paintings, each gesture a methodology of grounding.'

– Emma Kate Wilson