Emma Hart (b.1974, London, UK, lives and works in London, UK) uses her ceramic sculptures to perform, play out and question the power dynamics that structure a class-based society. Hart probes how our social background is transmitted through verbal signals and physical gestures, especially speech. Going beyond making vessels or pots, Hart's risky approach to working with ceramics pushes the technical limits of clay, setting it to make 'situations' in which the viewer finds themselves centre stage. Starting with the idea of manipulating 'signs' such as pointing fingers, speech bubbles and targets, Hart produces imposing sculptures that tell you where to look, where to go and forcibly put words into your mouth that may not form part of your own vocabulary.

In 2023 Hart created the permanent artwork Hear Now! for the public entrance of the new UCL East building in London. In 2024 Emma Hart's Club Together opened, a major permanent installation for Modern Art Oxford in the form of a 60 seat cafe.

In 2025 Hart was awarded a Stanley Picker Fellowship at Kingston Universty. In 2022 she was bestowed with a Henry Moore Foundation Artist Award. In 2017 she won the Max Mara Art Prize for Women in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery, and in 2015 she was awarded a Paul Hamlyn Foundation award for Visual Art.

Major solo exhibitions include Big Time (Hospitalfield, Scotland 2023 and Frieze Sculpture, London 2022),  Big Mouth, (Barakat Contemporary, Seoul, 2022); Banger (Fruitmarket, Edinburgh, 2018), Mamma Mia! (Whitechapel Gallery, London, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, 2017), Giving It All That (Folkestone Triennial 2014) and Dirty Looks (Camden Arts Cente, 2013).

She has participated in group exhibitions, notably presenting work in the ceramic survey Strange Clay at the Hayward Gallery (London, 2022-23); Somerset House (London, 2021); Kuenstlerhaus Dortmund (Dortmund, 2019); Kunsthaus Hamburg (Hamburg, 2018). Hart co-curated and took part in the major sculpture group show, Poor Things at Fruitmarket (Scotland, 2023).

Hart was included in the 2017 Phaidon publication Vitamin C, a  global survey of 100 of today's most important clay and ceramic artists. In 2024 Hart is included in a new book by Phaidon Press called Great Women Sculptors. The book will present around 300 of the most significant and preeminent women sculptors from around the world and across time.

Hart’s work is held in public collections including the Arts Council Collection, The Government Art Collection and the British Council Collection.

Hart studied Fine Art at Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, graduating with an MA (2004), and received a PhD degree in Fine Art at Kingston University (2013).