Liminal Gallery is delighted to present 'The Pull of the Tides,' a two-person exhibition by painters Anna Blom and Emma Richardson. The exhibition delves into the depths of human emotion, nature's mysteries, the interplay between the conscious and unconscious realms and the passage of time.

Emma Richardson's intricate paintings draw inspiration from water as the source of life and its dual nature of fear, calm, and intrigue. They resonate with the ocean's rhythmic pulse, mirroring the interplay between the conscious and subconscious. Mythological goddesses associated with water also find a contemporary voice, embodying the potency of feminine power.

Anna Blom's paintings delve into co-existence and its emotional echoes. Blom's diaristic approach, characterised by layers of sketches, white noise, and writing, culminates in semi-abstract observational portraitures. Her technique involves immersing raw canvases in baths of watery pigments, allowing colours to flow like meandering rivers. These intricate layers mirror the multifaceted layers of human existence, as they interrogate overlooked states that form the backdrop of our daily lives.

‘The Pull of the Tides' entwines the visions of Anna Blom and Emma Richardson, offering an exploration of the intricacies of water's influence on human life, the psyche and our shared experiences.

Anna Blom’s work is a continuous narrative of her own immediate surroundings. It is a deconstruction of the fragile details - the warp and weft - the physical and psychological components of our everyday landscape, using a diaristic method she studies the isolated, overlooked and less-celebrated lapses of time. An act of watching and trying to understand co-existence.

The research is an archival process of collecting photographs, sketches, white noise and writing which ultimately is poured into a painting. The multiple layers on the canvas are built up with stains of thin washes using raw pigment and permitting situational debris to flow in. This creates textured, gritty, matt surfaces allowing the materials to explore each other, the colours indicating seasonality, and the debris enhancing an awareness of place of production. The making itself becomes a memory of time and place.

Anna Blom is a Swedish born, London-based artist who holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art (2022) and a BFA in Painting from UAL Wimbledon (2020). She has curated, led and exhibited across Europe and UK. Recent exhibitions include LUMA Aora & Apsara Gallery, International Women’s Day Auction with Liminal Gallery and Annihilation OHSH Projects. She is a recipient of 2022/2023 Travers Smith Art Programme, Morrison Foerster Art Programme and been Highly Commended in 2023 CSR Art Awards. Blom divides her studio practice between south London and Sweden.

Driven by an interest in psychology, sexuality and transcendence, Emma Richardson's large scale oil paintings explore themes of human drive and connection, the complexities of female desire and the search for ecstatic experience. She draws inspiration from a wide variety of sources including historical painting, ideas of the dangerous woman, female authority and desire, and her previous experience as a touring musician. This leads to research into the human need throughout history to find escape through the transcendental, in religion, spirituality, sex, drugs, music, and the power of the natural world. In these imagined psychological landscapes Richardson plays with how paint can describe and suggest the intensity of an experience or sensation, representing both the physical and the metaphysical, and it’s ability to conjure the struggle between the spirit of the times and the spirit of the depths.

Emma Richardson graduated from Wimbledon School of Art, London with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art in 2004. She has exhibited in solo and group shows in London, Southampton, Manchester, Margate, Hong Kong, Barcelona and Madrid. She received DYCP funding from Arts Council England in 2021 and in 2022 completed three years on the Turps Correspondence Course. Her paintings are held in private collections in Canada, America, Italy, Spain and the UK. Alongside painting Richardson is also a musician, and previously wrote and performed worldwide with Band of Skulls for over ten years. Her paintings appear on a selection of their album and single releases. She currently lives and works in London, UK.