Afterglow (2017)

Emma Hartley

Emma Hartley draws influence from the world around her to produce stunning works of ethereal, emotionally charged, beauty. The ambiguous forms and misty, melting planes are somewhat similar to the void-centred iconography of the Japanese Shūbun school of painting. Indeed, the pictorial language of Hartley’s work appears to embrace fluid space, expanding and contracting throughout the picture plane. Emotive clouds of colour and inky evanescent planes ebb through the image evoking instinctual responses. Both her figurative and landscape-based works resist clarity, remaining mysterious and profound, and open only to emotional interpretation.