Emma Hartman Heathers

Stockholm, 23.2–15.4  2023

GSA Gallery is proud to present Emma Hartman’s fifth solo exhibition Heathers at the gallery which features a new series of paintings and pastels.

Heathers, bushy evergreen plants growing abundantly on heathland or moorland, come alive with inspiration from petals and flower stalks. Hartman’s imagery brings about a feeling of nature, caresses from feathers and wind, colours of reeds. The composition is sharp and well defined, while the colour seems to flow from the canvas and envelops the viewer in a warm embrace.

The colour evokes the painting. I usually work on numerous paintings concurrently in my studio. I begin with the idea of different colors meeting, often connected to a feeling or a place. A painting always consists of several paintings before it is finished. It is reworked, it rests and requires different things from me.
-Emma Hartman

Hartman lets her emotions and intuition guide her on the way to the finished work, with a great number of works in process simultaneously in her studio. Alike the seasons, the process changes and constantly encourages something new; directions, feelings and techniques. In the exhibition Heathers, oil pastels are a new feature, which like Hartman’s paintings, flow with strong colours. The colour is still the obvious guiding star, where the hand acts more as an extension than possessing a controlling role. Hartman herself describes her work as an intermediate stage between the abstract and the figurative, since there is always a connection to the landscape.

Emma Hartman was born in Örebro, in 1974. She lives and works in Stockholm. After beginning her studies at the Gerlesborg School of Art in Stockholm, she graduated from the Umeå School of Fine Arts in 2006. Since the graduate exhibition at Bildmuseet in Umeå, Hartman has had several solo exhibitions in Sweden as well as being awarded with several notable scholarships, supported by the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts.

Works in the exhibition: