Emma Talbot: Always in Transformation
Current exhibition
Overview
Everything is Energy, No Resting Place, 2025
Opening reception: Thursday 23 April, 6 – 8pm
23 April – 22 May 2026
23 April – 22 May 2026
Hales is delighted to announce Always in Transformation, a solo exhibition of works by Emma Talbot, presenting silk paintings, intimate drawings and sculpture. Talbot’s practice explores the complexity of our relationship with nature, technology and the world around us, combining myth and storytelling with futuristic perspectives to create thought-provoking works.
Recently Talbot’s large scale commission COSMOS was unveiled at the newly expanded New Museum, New York, in the show New Humans: Memories of the Future. Many of the works in Always in Transformation were included in her major solo institutional exhibitions Everything is Energy at the Arnolfini, Bristol, UK (2025-2026), Are You a Living Thing That Is Dying or a Dying Thing That Is Living? at Copenhagen Contemporary, Denmark (2025) and How We Learn to Love at Compton Verney, UK (2025).
In Always in Transformation Talbot’s work offers a reminder of our fundamental connection to the natural world and to one another. In her body of silk paintings Everything is Energy, human figures, rock formations, flowing water, plants and trees are imbued with a living energy—suggesting an ecosystem in which all elements are interconnected. Ideas of transformation and continuity are central to her practice. Talbot’s process often involves intuitively making drawings before delving into extensive research, intertwining her findings with myth, memory and observation to tell the stories of our time. Her sculptural forms extend these ideas into three dimensions, giving physical presence to concepts that might otherwise remain intangible.
Talbot is widely recognised for her distinctive use of silk as both a material and conceptual device. The lightness and fluidity of her silk paintings introduce a sense of openness and flux, while her integration of text and image dissolves traditional hierarchies between the two. Across her work, language and form coexist, creating narratives that unfold across space and time. As writer Jennifer Higgie observes, ‘the artist creates cosmic landscapes —or perhaps ecosystems is more accurate—from myriad elements and materials, each of which alludes to something more than the sum of its physical parts: an energy, a mood, a memory, an idea, a sound.’ [1] The layered works Talbot creates evoke a sense of entanglement, of ideas, materials, and lived experience, reflecting on what it means to be alive in a constantly shifting world.
At the centre of Always in Transformation is a meditation on energy as a continuous, transformative force. As Talbot reflects, ‘Energy can never be stopped, it can only be transformed.’ [2] Her works suggest a world in flux, where human presence is just one part of a larger, enduring system, one that will continue, evolve, and regenerate.
Talbot (b.1969 Stourbridge, UK) received a BA in Fine Art from Birmingham Institute of Art & Design in 1991 and an MA in Painting form the Royal College of Art, London in 1995. She lives and works in London and Italy. In 2022 Talbot featured in the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams. In 2020 she was awarded the 8th Max Mara Art Prize for Women.
Her work is featured in many collections including City Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, UK; David Roberts Collection, UK; University of the Arts, London: Special Collections, UK; Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia; Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, Netherlands, Arnhem Museum, Netherlands, KRC Collection, Netherlands, AzkoNobel, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Netherlands, Waltham Forest Collection, London, UK; Arts Council Collection, UK; Guerlain Collection, Paris, France; British Council Collection, UK, Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany; Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands; and Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek, Denmark.
Recent solo exhibitions include Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany (opening May 2026); Helsinki Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland (opening October 2026); Arnolfini, Bristol (2025-2026); Copenhagen Contemporary, Denmark (2025); Compton Verney, UK (2025); EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece (2025); Mother Earth Solo presentation for Good Mom/Bad Mom Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands (2025); Copenhagen Contemporary, Denmark (2025); Museum Hundertwasser KHW, Vienna, Austria (2024); Cremona Contemporanea, The Tragedies, Solo presentation, Teatro Ponchielli, Cremona, Italy (2024); Visions, Miucciaccia Project Space, Rome Italy (2024); among many others.
[1] Jennifer Higgie in ‘Stories of Our Times, Emma Talbot’s Ecosystems’, Everything is Energy, Emma Talbot, 2025, p45
[2] Emma Talbot in ‘What is Life’, Everything is Energy, Emma Talbot, 2025, p11
Works
Installation Views
