Emily Avery Yoshiko Crow
The Sky Takes Root
Tabula Rasa Gallery, London
12 September - 13 November 2026
Opening: Saturday, 12 September 2026, 4-8pm
The Sky Takes Root
Tabula Rasa Gallery, London
12 September - 13 November 2026
Opening: Saturday, 12 September 2026, 4-8pm
Tabula Rasa Gallery, London is pleased to present The Sky Takes Root, a solo exhibition by Emily Avery Yoshiko Crow, opening on Saturday, 12 September 2026, 4–8 pm.
The sky has no roots. In Emily Avery Yoshiko Crow’s paintings, however, dreams and mythic presences find somewhere to live and grow. The Sky Takes Root, her solo exhibition at Tabula Rasa Gallery London, evokes images that arise beyond conscious intention, before reason gives them a name or meaning. Through pigment, paper and cloth, they acquire a material life without becoming any less mysterious.
Crow once dreamt of a golden lake filled with golden lotuses. Three women - or perhaps goddesses - stood in the water. She does not know who they were, yet they continue to return in her paintings. Their reappearance does not explain the dream; it gives it another life.
Beneath the trees, human and animal forms mingle. Birds have human faces; figures gather among branches and at the water’s edge. The Kalavinka, a human-bird being celebrated for its beautiful voice, recalls Crow’s Buddhist upbringing. Its affinities with creatures from other mythologies suggest a recognition that travels between cultures, even as their stories remain distinct.
These elusive presences are made through patient, physical processes.Hand-ground mineral pigments settle into paper; indigo and botanical dyes enter the fibres of cloth. Drawing on Indian miniature painting and Japanese dyeing traditions, Crow gives colour weight, grain and texture. What begins as a vision becomes something that can be touched.
In Tree Boro, birds animated by ChaCha Lee fly across a textile tree, accompanied by recorded birdsong. Their light passes over folds and stitching,briefly inhabiting the fabric before moving on. The tree remains, waiting for another flight.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Emily Avery Yoshiko Crow is an artist born in Boulder, Colorado. She works with watercolour, traditional Nihonga, Japanese mineral pigment, natural sculpture, textiles, animation and film production design. Her art draws from and explores dream, nature, myth, and the unseen in contemporary life.
Crow was raised by her parents following the Shambhala tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. She studied Chinese Traditional Medicine in San Francisco at the ACTCM, and Fine Arts at Naropa University with Joan Anderson and Robert Spellman. After the completion of her formal education, she spent many years living between India, Nepal and Canada. In these years, she studied Indian miniature painting with master painter Mahaveer Swami in Bikaner, and the art of Indigo dying in Japan.
The art of Emily Avery Crow draws upon a myriad of traditions drawn from religious iconography into settings that restore mythic and mystical settings. The appropriation of the sources of these traditions are not academic nor are they exotic but instead restore the imaginative framing of the impulses of connecting the image with the religious. Recent exhibitions include Bangkok, Nepal, U.K., U.A.E., and China.
The sky has no roots. In Emily Avery Yoshiko Crow’s paintings, however, dreams and mythic presences find somewhere to live and grow. The Sky Takes Root, her solo exhibition at Tabula Rasa Gallery London, evokes images that arise beyond conscious intention, before reason gives them a name or meaning. Through pigment, paper and cloth, they acquire a material life without becoming any less mysterious.
Crow once dreamt of a golden lake filled with golden lotuses. Three women - or perhaps goddesses - stood in the water. She does not know who they were, yet they continue to return in her paintings. Their reappearance does not explain the dream; it gives it another life.
Beneath the trees, human and animal forms mingle. Birds have human faces; figures gather among branches and at the water’s edge. The Kalavinka, a human-bird being celebrated for its beautiful voice, recalls Crow’s Buddhist upbringing. Its affinities with creatures from other mythologies suggest a recognition that travels between cultures, even as their stories remain distinct.
These elusive presences are made through patient, physical processes.Hand-ground mineral pigments settle into paper; indigo and botanical dyes enter the fibres of cloth. Drawing on Indian miniature painting and Japanese dyeing traditions, Crow gives colour weight, grain and texture. What begins as a vision becomes something that can be touched.
In Tree Boro, birds animated by ChaCha Lee fly across a textile tree, accompanied by recorded birdsong. Their light passes over folds and stitching,briefly inhabiting the fabric before moving on. The tree remains, waiting for another flight.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Emily Avery Yoshiko Crow is an artist born in Boulder, Colorado. She works with watercolour, traditional Nihonga, Japanese mineral pigment, natural sculpture, textiles, animation and film production design. Her art draws from and explores dream, nature, myth, and the unseen in contemporary life.
Crow was raised by her parents following the Shambhala tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. She studied Chinese Traditional Medicine in San Francisco at the ACTCM, and Fine Arts at Naropa University with Joan Anderson and Robert Spellman. After the completion of her formal education, she spent many years living between India, Nepal and Canada. In these years, she studied Indian miniature painting with master painter Mahaveer Swami in Bikaner, and the art of Indigo dying in Japan.
The art of Emily Avery Crow draws upon a myriad of traditions drawn from religious iconography into settings that restore mythic and mystical settings. The appropriation of the sources of these traditions are not academic nor are they exotic but instead restore the imaginative framing of the impulses of connecting the image with the religious. Recent exhibitions include Bangkok, Nepal, U.K., U.A.E., and China.
Tabula Rasa Gallery (London)
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
Tuesday - Saturday 12:00 - 18:00 | Sunday - Monday Closed
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