Emma Bjurström b. 1986

Emma Bjurström was born in Uppsala, Sweden.

Lives and works in Virrestad, Sweden.

Bjurström graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2014 and has since focused primarily on painting as her medium of choice. Her work explores how artifacts and symbols from the past can be reinterpreted, re-evaluated, and brought back to life. What once was is transformed. Through meticulous studies and enlarged depictions of historical objects, Bjurström breathes new energy into the past while highlighting the evolving distance between different eras. Objects from history acquire renewed meaning in a new millennium. Nineteenth-century painting serves as a key reference point in her practice, and she cites artists such as Anders Zorn, John Singer Sargent, and Édouard Manet as major influences.

Her solo exhibitions include Someone else is breathing (2025), Belenius; Everything Except Itself (2023), Belenius; In Three Acts (2022) Lamb Art Gallery, London; Timber and Stone (2021) and Absentminded Deformation (2018), both at Belenius in Stockholm and at Överkloster (2017) in Skåne, Sweden.

Through her art, Bjurström gives rise to new ideas, insights, and relationships by engaging with old materials and ideals. In a world shaped by dualistic thinking, her work insists on a dialogue between the past and the present.