Emmy Bridgewater @ The Mayor Gallery

An exhibition on the poet and a painter Emmy Bridgwater (1906–1999). who was a leading member of an ambitious circle of artists and writers. Throughout the 1930s and 40s, they acted as a unified collective, organising lectures and debates, to which they also invited Birmingham-based academics and musicians, while working individually on their own Surrealist visions, each developing a unique style.

During this period, Bridgwater invoked the Surrealist principle of juxtaposing unusual objects to reveal uncanny narratives; in her paintings and ink drawings viewers are invited into interior worlds, defined by a symbolic language of birds, eggs and organic forms. From the outset, these artists were distinguished by their opposition to a London-based vision of Surrealism.