> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.catapult-platform.art/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Emma Bjurström: Painting as Controlled Loss - URL: https://www.catapult-platform.art/emma-bjurstrom-painting-as-controlled-loss/ - Published: 2026-02-11T07:24:07.000Z - Updated: 2026-02-28T17:30:04.000Z - Description: Artist in Focus Emma Bjurström works with painting to stage controlled loss, cultural memory, and perceptual instability through material restraint and historical reference. - Author: Dominique Catherina Foertig - Tags: Artist in Focus ## **Between familiarity and deformation** ### **Emma Bjurström – Painting** [**Emma Bjurström**](https://www.instagram.com/emmabjurstrom/?ref=catapult-platform.art) is a Swedish painter born in 1986, living and working in Virrestad. Her practice is rooted in painting, but driven less by representation than by shifts in perception. Working primarily in oil on canvas, she positions painting as a site where familiarity begins to slip, where motifs drawn from cultural memory lose their stability without disappearing entirely. Bjurström often starts from a clear sketch or historical reference, then allows the image to dissolve through intuitive improvisation. Older painting traditions, archival objects, and everyday materials are scaled, fragmented, and reassembled until they hover between recognition and uncertainty. The paintings do not narrate history, they register erosion. Loss appears not as drama, but as a quiet structural condition. Motifs are stretched, folded, or partially erased, suggesting time as a force that deforms rather than concludes. In recent works, Bjurström incorporates digitally processed documentation of objects from her immediate surroundings. These objects are treated not as neutral forms, but as carriers of projected value and collective agreement. The tension between shared perception and personal distance becomes central. Her painting operates within this gap, producing a restrained form of magical realism grounded in material decisions rather than symbolism artist statement. Bjurström has exhibited with[**Belenius Gallery in Stockholm**](https://belenius.com/artists/32-emma-bjurstrom/?ref=catapult-platform.art) and **Lamb Gallery**, among others. Her work resists narrative clarity, insisting instead on painting as a place where time, memory, and form remain unresolved. --- [**Emma Bjurström on Instagram**](https://www.instagram.com/emmabjurstrom/?ref=catapult-platform.art) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-museum-style-installation-abstract-painting-context.webp) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-studio-process-large-scale-oil-painting-gestural-surfaces.webp) ****Emma Bjurström** \- Artist Studio Impressions Image provided by the artist(left) Emma Bjurström (right)Photo: Willem Anderson Image Courtesy and provided by the artist ![artist in focus Emma Bjurström installation view with yellow abstracted painting at belenius gallery](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-contemporary-art-exhibition-spatial-compositions.webp) ****Emma Bjurström** \-"Preludium" from the exhibition Someone else is breathing View ****Belenius Gallery** Images courtesy of the artist and Belenius -> Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger - Image Courtesy and provided by the artist and gallery ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-abstract-figurative-painting-organic-folds-oil-on-canvas.webp) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-abstract-figurative-landscape-body-fragmentation.webp) ****Emma Bjurström** (left) "Preludium" - (right) "Imprinted vectors" from the exhibition Everything Except Itself - Photo Willem Andersson Image Courtesy and provided by the artist and gallery Photo Willem Andersson ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-abstract-figurative-painting-organic-oil-on-canvas.webp) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-abstract-painting-yellow-palette-material-flow-oil-on-canvas.webp) ****Emma Bjurström:** "Someone else is breathing" (same as the exhibition name) - (right) "Can Can Circles" from the exhibition Absentminded deformation. Image Courtesy and provided by the artist and gallery - Photo Willem Andersson ![Emma Bjurström exhibition view. large scale oil paintings. abstracted belenius gallery](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-contemporary-art-exhibition-spatial-composition.webp) ****Emma Bjurström** "Can Can Circles" and the other big one- "Chasing Lesley". From Absentminded deformation - Photo Jean-Baptiste Béranger Image Courtesy and provided by the artist and gallery ![belenius gallery exhibition view with Emma Bjurström artworks paintings, abstracted large scale](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-exhibition-detail-organic-forms-oil-painting.webp) ****Emma Bjurström** Absentminded deformation - Belenius Gallery - Exhibition - Image Courtesy and provided by the artist and gallery ![ma Bjurström Timber and Stone Act of Tin Pants Artifact , installation view. paintings. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-exhibition-view-contemporary-painting-installation.webp) ****Emma Bjurström** Timber and Stone Act of Tin Pants Artifact. Image Courtesy and provided by the artist and gallery ![Emma Bjurström Someone else is Breathing Photo - Belenius Gallery](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-gallery-installation-view-abstract-figurative-painting.webp) ****Emma Bjurström** Someone else is Breathing Photo - Belenius Gallery -> Jean-Baptiste Béranger - Image Courtesy and provided by the artist and gallery ![Emma Bjurström - ”Everything Except Itself” - Belenius Gallery, installation view](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-gallery-installation-view-abstract-figurative-paintings.webp) ****Emma Bjurström** \- ”Everything Except Itself” - Belenius Gallery Photo: Ellinor Hall - Image Courtesy and provided by the artist and gallery ![Details of Emma Bjurström artworks installation view from - Everything Except Itself - Belenius Gallery ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/2026/02/emma-bjurstrom-exhibition-detail-organic-forms-oil-painting-emma-bjurstrom-exhibition-detail-organic-forms-oil-painting.webp) ****Emma Bjurström** \- Everything Except Itself - Belenius Gallery . Image Courtesy and provided by the artist and gallery --- [Exhibition SubmissionSubmit your contemporary art exhibition to Catapult for potential feature coverage. Free submission for Institutions, artists, and curators.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/icon/catapult-3.png)This is CatapultDominique Catherina Foertig![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/thumbnail/exhibition-submission--free--catapult-munchies-art-club-2.jpg)](https://www.catapult-platform.art/exhibition-submission/) --- ## More Artist do discover: [Sculpting Memory: The Artistic Practice of Sture PallarpExplore the work of Sture Pallarp, a Swedish artist whose sculptures and design practice blend memory, material, and meaning to reflect contemporary dialogues in art.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/icon/catapult-4.png)This is CatapultDominique Catherina Foertig![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/thumbnail/sture-pallarp-1-5.webp)](https://www.catapult-platform.art/sture-pallarp-artist-designer-memory-sculpture/) Sture Pallarp - Artist Spotlight [Laugh, Think, And Gaze: Dive Into Lena Trydal’s World Of Witty And Provocative PaintingWelcome To The Captivating World Of Lena Trydal, Where Art Meets Satire And History Collides With Pop Culture. A Munchies Art Club Spotlight Artist now to discover![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/icon/catapult-5.png)This is CatapultDominique Catherina Foertig![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1c/24/1c2478ff-417d-4e88-8226-288af467f6b9/content/images/thumbnail/lena-trydal-promising-contemporary--artist-painter-on-munchies-art-club-3.webp)](https://www.catapult-platform.art/lena-trydal-norwegian-contemporary-artist-female-painter/) Lena Trydal - Artist Spotlight ---