Emma Larsson is a Stockholm-based artist and illustrator born in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1977. Since her teenage years, she has had her own art studio. Her work strikes the balance between colourful dreamscape and in-articulable melancholy. Her practice has evolved to include expressive and organic watercolours, alongside paintings created with oil and acrylic. She describes her work as an ongoing exploration without rules and conventions, continually generating new forms, patterns, and themes. Emma has collaborated with brands and agencies, including Rachel Comey, Show Studio, and Winsor & Newton. Also renowned on Instagram as @zebrakadebra, she has an impressive following of over 160K followers from all over the world.
Larsson’s watercolours, paintings, collages and sculptures are in constant flow. She describes her creative process as the synergy between the artist, the material and an unknown presence that she calls “force”. Emma’s paintings are purely intuitive, sourcing from pleasure and freedom. She starts with a blank paper and follows the flow. In her spare time, she walks in the virgin forests surrounding the city she lives in, Stockholm. She finds most of her inspiration in nature’s shapes, colours and patterns, leading to abstract and moving forms in her paintings.
“I’m a tireless explorer. If I become too comfortable and feel I know too much of a subject, I get bored. What I am constantly seeking needs to be unknown to me. Creating my art is about playing and exploring freely. If I am asked to describe my work, I can only come up with words such as liquid, energy, shapes, rhythms, playful, nature’s wonders, curiosity, contemplation, poetry, freedom, meaning, longing, intuition.”
Emma Larsson’s work has been exhibited in Sweden, Denmark, UK, and the USA. She has done numerous collaborations in different mediums with high-profiled brands such as H&M, COS, SOHO House London, Rahel Comey, Artpieces, ShowStudio (Nick Night and Bex Cassie), Martimore House London, Anamika Khanna and more. Her artworks have been featured in Harper’s Bazaar Magazine, WeTransfer/WePresent, Woman’s Health Magazine USA, REVS Magazine, Chor Data Magazine USA, and more.
