Emerson Pullman | What was left behind
We are delighted to announce What was left behind, an exhibition of new paintings by Emerson Pullman, and the artist’s first solo show at Canopy Collections HQ. Pullman’s figurative paintings exist in the space between realism and abstraction. The depiction of a figure in a scene is used as a framework through which the artist explores themes of time, memory, introspection and mortality. His subjects are often depicted turning away from the viewer, creating a certain distance between the image and its audience while leaving space for contemplation and reflection. Pullman plays with the mechanics of painting, constructing his works through gestural layers of translucent paint, leaving areas of the canvas unpainted and images not entirely resolved.
In What was left behind, Emerson Pullman presents a new body of work that orbits the unstable ground between memory and presence. Nothing stays unchanged in life; time moves through us, altering the shape of who we are, leaving behind fragments – traces of what was, echoes of what still lingers. In these paintings the idea of the self is in motion, caught between presence and absence, form and dissolution. Faces emerge and recede, bodies take shape only to blur at the edges, as if memory and reality are negotiating space on the canvas. These works are a reflection on transformation, on what is lost, what remains, and what continues to evolve. Pullman’s painting process itself mirrors this; layers of paint build and erode, decisions are made and undone, surfaces shift in and out of focus. Some marks stay, others disappear, each choice leaving its imprint on the canvas.
Drawing on the domestic intimacy of Vuillard and the dissolving light of Bonnard, Pullman plays with the structures of interior and exterior – latticework, chairs, chandeliers and framed artworks – that tether his figures to time and place. Yet these spaces never quite settle. Like memory, they flicker. A subject may sit posed, but we are not offered the comfort of permanence. Instead, we are invited to linger in what remains: the gestures, colours and atmosphere. To look back is not to dwell, but to understand how we carry the past within us; not as something fixed, but as something that moves forward with us.
Emerson Pullman (b. 1995, UK) graduated from the City and Guilds of London Art School in 2022. His work is held in private collections in the UK, USA, France and Portugal. Pullman has exhibited in New Contemporaries 2023/2024 at the Camden Art Centre, London and The Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool as well as Sid Motion Gallery, London; Canopy Collections, London; Annka Kultys Gallery, London; New Normal Projects, London; Wells Cathedral, Somerset and Sunny Bank Mills; Leeds.
Emerson Pullman | What was left behind
15 May–13 June 2025
Private View: Thursday 15 May, 6–9pm
Canopy Collections HQ
3 Bloomsbury Place
London WC1A 2QA