Is that an explosion, an implosion or an orgasm? Pixies bass-player Emma Richardson’s realm-leaping life in painting

Huge, ecstatic canvases are just one of the vocations of the musician who joined the art rockers in 2024. As her show Hotwire My Heart opens, she talks terror, awe and teabags

Emma Richardson loves to eavesdrop when people look at her paintings and talk about what they see in them. “They turn into these Rorschach inkblot tests,” she grins. Looking at her works, you do stand back in awe wondering. Is that a nebula, a god or a fleshy, baroque orgy? An explosion, an implosion or an orgasm? Richardson implies all of these and more, her paintbrush chasing in vivid oils the hedonism, desire and breadth of human experience.

This fascination with the transcendent has in part been informed by her other life as a musician, formerly in the garage-rock trio Band of Skulls and currently playing bass and singing in Pixies.