Emily Wolfe

Recent Painting

8th May –
31st May 2013

The primary focus of London based artist Emily Wolfe's work is the interior space. The spaces described in these paintings are still and confined. Sometimes it is a corner of a room, or the space underneath a window or even just a wall. Although they are always unpopulated, these paintings have the suggestion of a human presence, they imply that an action or event may be about to take place, or perhaps has just happened. These are not paintings of actual places; instead they are constructed from remembered or imagined rooms, settings from books or reinterpretations of rooms glimpsed through windows.

The walls in these works are lined with peeling and faded wallpaper, and provide a backdrop to an array of seemingly discarded or forgotten objects - old furniture, an electric heater, an empty animal or bird cage, faded paper decorations are all arranged in such a way as to suggest an atmosphere of mild unease or discord. This work might evoke a sensation of a half -forgotten memory of an unspecified time or place.

In her most recent work, Wolfe has become increasingly interested in the interaction between these interior spaces and the exterior world - light from an unseen window flickers across walls and creeps over furniture. Sometimes this daylight is filtered through the veil of a patterned curtain, animating the walls, floor and furniture with blurred shadows. At the core of this exhibition is an interest in the intersection between the interior and exterior space; between the motionless silence of the interior and the constant flux of the world outside.