Music is not Band of Skulls bassist Emma Richardson's only love. When not writing songs or touring the band’s two critically acclaimed alt-rock albums, Baby Darling Doll Face Honey and Sweet Sour, she can be found in her Southampton studio painting mind-bending pieces. Mind-bending in the semi-literal, thought-provoking sense, that is – as opposed to any associations with psychedelia or substances, despite those rock and roll credentials of hers.

Having studied Jung and Freud, Richardson is obsessed with the sub-conscious and the way in which individuals might interpret her abstract works, which she has compared to the Rorschach ink test.

Given her impulsive approach to painting, Richardson’s favourite pieces are always her most recent. ‘With the latest painting I’ve done’, she says, speaking from her Southampton studio, ‘I’ve usually pushed my work a little further and experimented more’.

In keeping with that interest in the nuanced differences of individual interpretation, Richardson doesn’t liken the style of her work to that of any other artist, but instead aligns herself with the principals of those she admires. In particular, she associates her approach with that of fêted avant gardist Francis Bacon and the way and the way he let chance and instinct guide the direction of his painting.

‘It allows you to go to deeper levels of your personality when you take risks, and paint with abandon’ she explains. ‘You can be a bit more radical’.

Touring with Band of Skulls takes Emma Richardson to a wealth of far flung locations all around the globe, allowing her to visit her favourite galleries, including MoMa, The Guggenheim and, closer to home, London’s National Gallery. She also takes advantage of the more obscure locations her musical career affords, searching for new inspiration and little-known discoveries, such as on small gallery in Australia full of 'amazing, vicious abstract art’.   

Emma’s hometown of Southampton, where she and her studio are based, continues to lure her back from her travels, as the fulcrum of her existence, full of family and friends, and will sturdy and evolving music and art scenes. There are galleries, bars and independent shops that she frequents, as her brilliantly named favourite off-license, Cloud Wine.

Performing on stage with Band of Skulls, and exhibiting her work, as she did last year at the Londonewcastle Project Space on Shoreditch’s Redchurch Street is a buzz, but for Richardson her studio is her sanctuary. 'You can leave everything else at the door,' she says. That studio is located in The Arches, a collection of independent work spaces, that with funding from the Southampton Partnership, SEEDA and Southampton City Council, has supported emerging artists for the last twelve years. 

Working in such close and communal quarters with her contemporaries has proved a consistent source of inspiration for Richardson. 'It’s good to have camaraderie and be inspired by other people working hard around you.'