Is that an explosion, an implosion or an orgasm? Pixies bass-player Emma Richardson’s realm-leaping life in painting

Emma Richardson, the Pixies’ bassist and former Band of Skulls musician, is opening a new painting show, *Hotwire My Heart*. Her large, vivid oil paintings explore desire, ecstasy and the sublime, drawing on the intensity and unpredictability of performing live as well as other ways people seek to transcend everyday experience.

Richardson, 44, studied painting and joined the Pixies in 2024 after taking time away from performing to focus on her art. Her work includes themes of female sexuality and desire, nature’s power, meditation, dancing and other peak experiences. Some paintings recently featured in Southampton City Art Gallery’s reopening exhibition, *Levitate Me: Desire, Ecstasy and the Sublime*; she is now preparing to tour the US with the Pixies.