Meet the Artist

Hi, I’m Emma — the artist behind Platiipussy.

For most of my life, I genuinely believed I couldn’t make art.

I’d always been creative, but it came out in other ways — singing, the way I dressed, the spaces I created around myself. I never really thought of myself as someone who could pick up a paintbrush and make something worth looking at.

That changed when I began attending an Indigenous women’s group with one of my support work clients.

I started small, painting little rocks and experimenting with dot work. Then, in fairly classic ADHD fashion, I got bored and picked up a canvas instead.

And I painted a pussy portal.

My client loved it. I gave that first one to her, made another, then another… and I pretty much haven’t stopped since.

Although, looking back, apparently the pussy portals had been trying to get out of me for a while.

About six months before I ever started painting, I completely relandscaped my backyard and created a giant vulva-shaped flower garden. At the time I didn’t think much of it. Apparently I just have a recurring motif. 😂

The name Platiipussy came later.

One of the Aunties at the women’s group had been watching my work develop and asked me to make something for her. When she requested a platypus, my immediate response was something along the lines of, “A plata-pussy?”

“Nah love. Just a platypus.”

She told me the platypus was her spirit animal — and that she thought it might be mine too.

I went home and started reading about the meanings and characteristics associated with the platypus in Aboriginal stories and symbolism, and so much of what I found resonated with me. The name arrived around the same time I was beginning to share my work online, and Platiipussy just stuck. 

What started as something playful has gradually become something much bigger.

My work explores femininity, bodies, pleasure, nature, softness, sexuality, transformation and the slightly feral parts of being human. It’s bright, tactile, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ridiculous, and usually a little bit suggestive.

I’m still figuring out exactly where Platiipussy is going.

But I think that’s kind of the point.

I spent most of my life believing I wasn’t an artist.

Turns out I just hadn’t found the thing I wanted to make yet.

Welcome to the House of Platiipussy.