Emma Ferrer left NYC in 2021 for Italy and set up her studio in a rural area of Tuscany awash with natural beauty, the palpable influence of Renaissance and Medieval painting, and solitude. Ferrer returns to New York in 2025 with a poignant body of work that looks at the complex and fragile relationship between man, animal, and Nature.  The granddaughter of Audrey Hepburn, Hepburn Ferrer has kept a modest public profile over the past decade with select public appearances and philanthropic efforts. This is her first solo presentation.  At the core of this body of work is the myth of The Scapegoat which Ferrer sees as a foundational tale of animal sacrifice that explores common emotions across traditions. The idea for this body of work was born when Ferrer was first exposed to an ancient Greek human-Scapegoat concept whilst studying the Iliad under Gregory Nagy and Kevin McGrath at Harvard. The story of the Scapegoat has since continued to deeply move her as both a very ancient and poignantly contemporary fable. 

From pre-biblical and Paleo-Christian myths up until present day stories, Ferrer has found common currents of The Scapegoat in a multitude of unexpected places: among them for example the glorification of racing, la corrida, and hunting practices. To bolster this research, Ferrer has taken a number of courses in Greek mythology, theology, and philosophy of religion at the Harvard Extension School, and currently at Oxford University. 

Ferrer speaks about the emotional charge of her own works representing sacrificed animals: "I am keenly interested in complex emotional states of humans surrounding animal sacrifice… among them guilt, grief, regret, shame, hope, ecstasy, catharsis, redemption, and fear of exile." Ferrer has been reading the works of Sir James Frazer, Kenneth Burke, and René Girard that give a philosophical and theological context to the idea of the "Scapegoat". She is especially moved by Kenneth Burke who writes, "if one can hand over his infirmities to a vessel, or "cause," outside the self, one can battle an external enemy instead of battling an enemy within." 

Ferrer, who shares her home and studio in the Apuan Alps with her two herding dogs, Orso and Lilla, also reflects on the various mundane occurrences in her village and community. She is strongly influenced by the profound isolation of her area, and the way that life therein summons a strong interdependence on one's fellow human and other creatures.

Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer was born in Morges, Switzerland and grew up in Florence, Italy surrounded by the works of medieval and Renaissance artists. As a young adult, Ferrer spent six years in New York where she maintained a studio practice whilst working in art galleries as a curator and artist liaison. In 2021 she returned to her home in Camaiore, Italy, devoting herself to her art practice. There, reflecting on the remote beauty of her rural environment, she began investigating a complex relationship between humans, animals, and Nature, and the relationship of these to a higher power. This new body of work that looks to pre-biblical & Paleo-Christian myths up to present day narratives around animal sacrifice will be exhibited at Sapar Contemporary in 2025. Early in her artistic career Ferrer pursued a classical education in drawing and painting. One of the youngest students ever accepted into the academy, at 18 years of age she enrolled in the Advanced Painting program at the Florence Academy of Art, a traditional atelier where she would be imbued in the techniques, methodologies, and theories of the old masters. There, Ferrer undertook exhaustive studies from life including still life and the live figure, studying human anatomy as well as becoming fluent in classical materials in drawing, painting, and sculpture. While she initially honed in on an extremely naturalistic way of portraying reality, working solely from life, Ferrer over the last decade has looked inward, greatly loosening her style and leading with an emotive and intuitive practice. Ferrer received her MFA from Central Saint Martins in London in 2024. Throughout the course of her education she has studied under and worked for artists such as Golucho and the maestro Ivan Theimer. She has curated the works of fashion designers Zac Posen and Manolo Blahnik, and artists such as Eugenio Pardini and Sofia Cacciapaglia. Ferrer holds significant admiration for the Quattrocento painters Piero della Francesca, Masaccio, and Paolo Uccello. As a young painter, Ferrer also spent extensive time in Spain where she discovered and began investigating the works of Francisco de Zurbaràn, Symbolist painter Julìo Romero de Torres, and Goya.