The Playmaker

“I was the only girl on a boys’ team and I loved it! Football was the first place I really felt free.” For Emily Bisgaard, those words capture more than a childhood memory; they reveal the very foundation of her identity. The football pitch was the first space where she experienced true freedom and belonging. It gave her a sense of resilience and connection that would continue to shape her life and art. Before Emily became known for her paintings, murals and socially engaged projects, football taught her how to bring people together, to lead and to listen. “My coach called me the playmaker,” she says. “I had to connect people. I still see myself that way.” Her early involvement went beyond playing too. At just 13, while living in Hong Kong, she became an assistant coach, a role she held for five years that deepened her understanding of teamwork and leadership.

Emily Bisgaard photographed by Dicte Marie Hostrup Sønnichsen (@dictesonnichsen)

Emily’s life has been shaped by movement and cultural intersections. She was born in London to Danish parents but spent much of her childhood in Hong Kong and the Netherlands. Denmark was ever present as home, even though she only moved there recently, having grown up travelling between cities and countries. Summers and Christmases spent with family in Denmark were a deliberate part of preserving language and culture. “Denmark was always present, even though I never lived there until recently,” Emily explains. This constant movement left her with a fluid sense of belonging. Her identity has always been woven from different places and experiences rather than fixed to one location. It is this multilayered sense of self that she explores so deeply through her art.

Her parents provided a creative and open environment that nurtured both Emily the artist and Emily the athlete. “My mum is a psychotherapist and a very technically skilled painter,” she says. “My dad is a rational yet deeply creative problem-solver.” Both had left Denmark as young people with a desire to experience the world in new ways and raised their children with that same courage and curiosity. “They showed us from a young age that there isn’t just one way to live – to me that is art.” While her school years did not actively encourage creative expression, Emily’s life was always full of it. Sewing clothes, painting, keeping diaries and playing sports were all part of the same creative impulse – a way of being.

L & R Emily in Copenhagen photographed by Eileen Vollert (@eileen_visuals), Middle, Emily & her dad in Holland.

Football came into Emily’s life early and quickly became a constant as her family moved between countries. Her father played with her, coaching her local club teams and helping her develop a love for the game. When the family lived in the Netherlands, she joined a boys’ team coached by her dad. “We were two girls on a boys’ team,” she recalls. “From then on, I never stopped playing!” Football provided a sense of purpose and resilience when she was often in unfamiliar surroundings. It gave her a role and identity she could claim no matter where she was. “It gave me resilience, bravery, connection, and a sense of purpose,” she explains. Later, while living in the Netherlands, Emily also volunteered with the NGO Project Fearless, becoming their first head of football and leading training sessions for marginalised women and girls. These experiences expanded her role in the game beyond playing, placing her in positions where she could build confidence and opportunity for others.

Growing up, Emily was drawn to sport and art in equal measure but the lessons she learnt on the pitch shaped how she approaches both life and practice today. The role of playmaker taught her how to initiate and build connections, bridging gaps within a team. In her everyday life and art, she pursues the same ideal: “Football fuels the idea of the playmaker. I want that philosophy to live in my art, coaching or community projects.” That commitment has also extended to supporting organisations such as Girl Power, whose story is rooted in the Taliban’s ban on women playing football in Afghanistan. Much of their work supports women living in Much of their work supports women living in exile. Emily sees her work in communities as an effort to unlock the same kind of courageous play and connection she found on the pitch.

L 'Play It Forward' one of the two New Balance commissions Emily created around the Women’s Euros, R ‘Onside Offside 2’, 2025.

resilience

'Make Room', a mural by Emily & Paul Doran at BK Skjold, Copenhagen

Emily & partner Paul Doran next to Emily's painting titled ‘Safe’

Her most visible expression of this fusion is the Make Room mural at BK Skjold in Copenhagen, which she created with her partner Paul Doran. Paul grew up in Belfast, where football and Gaelic games fired his early passions and shaped how he sees the world. His art lives at the intersection of community activism and contemporary practice, pulling people together through collaborations and exhibitions. Emily met Paul during a four-month Belfast residency, and their shared love of socially engaged art sparked an instant creative and personal spark. Together they are TR!, pronounced “try,” a name that sums up their fearless attitude to making art and living life. “If you don’t try, you don’t know!” Emily says. Their partnership is about risk, play, and fearless creation as much as it is about paint and projects.

This spirit of bridging differences runs through all of Emily’s work. She resists the idea of boxing people into rigid categories, whether as artists or athletes. For her, art and football are kindred fields that both challenge rigid expectations and are dominated by male perspectives. Combining them allows her to open spaces where individuals can find more freedom and agency. “Art can offer traditional football environments a new way of thinking.” She invites us to see them not as separate worlds but as overlapping ones that share struggles and opportunities.

Make Room is both a celebration of women’s football and a community project that brought together players, club leadership and local children. Emily explains that it began when she expressed a desire to paint a mural dedicated to women’s football. A friend introduced her to the head of the club, Jan, who was eager to support the idea. Together with Paul, Emily volunteered to paint the women’s changing room, turning a functional space into a vibrant statement of pride and visibility. Paul’s presence as a male ally felt significant for Emily, demonstrating the importance of men supporting women’s sport. The project sparked engagement and conversation well beyond the week it took to paint.

'Girls' by Emily, commissioned by New Balance for the Women’s Euros

Alongside community projects, Emily’s work has entered the commercial sphere through commissions that reflect her commitment to women’s football culture. For the Women’s Euros final, New Balance commissioned her to create two paintings, Play It Forward and Girls. The first pays tribute to the women who paved the way before her and encourages younger women to pass the passion onward. The second explores abstract figures to represent the culture and community of women’s football. Both pieces strive to amplify voices within the sport and celebrate the collective spirit rather than simply decorate.

Emily credits much of her inspiration to family. “My parents, my brother and sister have shaped my thinking in more ways than they know,” she says. Her extended family, many of whom are entrepreneurs connected to the land and the simple joys of life, also informs her outlook. Above all, Paul offers daily inspiration with his honest and open attitude to the world. Her influences stretch beyond the art world too, encompassing athletes, community leaders and organisers. Everyone who builds connection and creativity feeds her practice.

evolving

Looking to the future, Emily has a number of projects in the pipeline that she cannot yet reveal. She recently participated in a group exhibition in Copenhagen that has just finished, adding to her growing presence in Denmark’s art scene. She is also helping to set up open training sessions in the city with friends under the name FC PiP (People in Play), a grassroots initiative that reflects her ongoing belief in football as a space for inclusion and connection. Yet what excites her most is continuing to explore identity, particularly the tension between what can be seen and what remains hidden. Painting offers her a way to probe this space in continual conversation with viewers and participants.

At the heart of her story lies an insistence on movement and fluidity. Emily’s life and work refuse to be pinned down by geography or category. She learned to play the role of the playmaker on the football pitch, linking people and opportunities. Art has given her tools to pass those connections forward and build new spaces of belonging. From murals in football changing rooms to workshops that stir community courage, Emily creates room for difference, belonging and play wherever the game or paint takes her.

In a world too quick to sort us into neat boxes, Emily Bisgaard invites us to try something else: to play, to connect, and to belong beyond boundaries.

Follow and find out more about Emily’s work here.