A new joint exhibition brings together two Birmingham-based painters for an otherworldly exploration of emotion, experience and memory.

Hosted at Seventh Circle Art Gallery, Inner Worlds: Emma Woolley and Tara Harris, is free to enter and will run from Sat 6 Jun – Sun 5 Jul.

For both women, painting is a place of freedom and escape from the pressures of everyday life, taking them into realms of their imagination.

Both artists have already achieved significant success both nationally and internationally. In the last few years, both have been longlisted for the prestigious Jacksons Art Prize, while Harris was named International Artist of the Year by Arts to Hearts, and Woolley was shortlisted for the Paula Rego Painting Prize by Women in Art.

Woolley and Harris first met two years ago, through the United Artists of South Birmingham, when they were both in the very early stages of their painting careers. Now, they present their first joint exhibition, featuring more than 15 new paintings which have not been shown publicly before.

Harris will show a series of dreamy landscapes, which she often paints late into the night. Working intuitively, she allows imagery to surface and represents “presences instead of places – inner terrains that suggest states of being, felt experiences, and emotional atmospheres.”

The artist has said she “explores the complex and often fragile relationship between humans and the natural world, which has the capacity to heal, nurture, and transform.” She hopes that viewers will “find their own narrative” when looking at her work, which has helped her process grief and unearth memories of significance.

Painting is also deeply therapeutic for Woolley, who will be showing a series of new contemporary portraits conjured directly from her imagination. Her figures are intimate, closely-cropped, and psychologically charged, often stripped of environmental context to focus attention on expression, gesture, and inner lives.

Working through the grief of losing her mother, Woolley is interested “in painting not what is pretty but what is unseen.” Her monumental portraits hum with energy, bold colour and dramatic lines – less about likeness, they map human feelings which we all experience but often try to contain.

Marie Hutton, Director, Seventh Circle Gallery, says: “The gallery is ready for Emma and Tara, two absolute powerhouses currently dominating the Birmingham scene. The ‘Inner Worlds’ concept is a visceral, high-energy exploration of identity and, in a world this loud, we all need the kind of escape these paintings provide.”

You can find more information about Inner Worlds here.