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Feral Bloom is a collection of new paintings by artist Emma Black. Exploring the complicated space between love, growth and self-preservation, Black examines how beauty and pain can coexist, and how experiences that allow us to grow can also leave marks upon us.
Join our online preview list for early access to the artworks and pre-sales.
Opening reception: Oct 31st, 5 - 8pm. This is a free event. As Beinart Gallery is a licensed venue, any minors attending the opening reception will need to be accompanied by a responsible adult.
This exhibition will run from Nov 1st - Nov 22nd, and will coincide with Kristen Liu-Wong's Things Unseen, and our Dark Art 2026 group exhibition.
In Feral Bloom, flowers appear as symbols of growth and transformation. They bloom from the darkness, often vivid and jewel-like, but their beauty isn’t without threat. Metallic spikes pierce petals, tears fall as pearls, and watching eyes emerge from the centre of flowers. Some have developed fangs, transforming something traditionally associated with delicacy into a creature capable of biting back. Simultaneously vulnerable and defensive, they are beautiful things that have learned how to protect themselves.
The butterflies move between flowers as representations of memory, of the people and
experiences that pass through our lives. Unlike the flowers which can only remain rooted, the butterflies are free to stay or disappear. Their presence symbolises a sense of uncertainty, the knowledge that something beautiful can be deeply meaningful without necessarily being permanent.
At the centre of the series is a personal tension between a desire to love openly, and a need to retain a sense of self. The works consider what it means to give yourself to others, while resisting the instinct to disappear; to acknowledge that love can bring vulnerability, uncertainty, and pain without allowing those things to erase the possibility of tenderness. Rather than presenting love or growth as purely beautiful experiences, these paintings show the contradictions within. Flowers bloom and bite, butterflies remain free to leave, tears become pearls and wounds become armour. The works exist somewhere between resistance and surrender, accepting that to care deeply is to make ourselves vulnerable, while learning that vulnerability doesn’t have to mean losing ourselves.
Emma Black is an artist and freelance illustrator from the UK, living in rural England. Black graduated from the University of Westminster with a First Class honours degree in Illustration in 2012, and in 2016 from the Cambridge School of Art with a MA in Fine Art. Black's artistic journey is an exploration of the unfamiliar and unknown. Whether examining an undiscovered facet of the physical world or plumbing the depths of the human psyche, her work navigates complex themes. Employing traditional media with a love for oils, Black delves into concepts of The Uncanny, the subconscious mind, and our relationship with mortality and the natural world.