Crawling Home on Bloody Knees
Emily North’s work evokes the experience of growing up in a small post industrial town and being haunted by memory. Using images of edge-lands and liminal spaces, her work explores how ideas of place and belonging are interwoven with the ghosts of personal and historical pasts. Working between her hometown of Barnsley and London, North finds herself noticing the ghosts of both towns in the empty, in-between spaces, untied to either place. Through painting, drawing, and mixed-media artworks, Crawling Home on Bloody Knees is an exploration of what it means to belong in a place unsure of its own present.
Artist pictured alongside ‘Ghosts of Past and Future’, 2025.
Crawling Home on Bloody Knees took place from 17th-20th July at Lamb’s Tail Gallery, Islington.
Is this my memory or yours?
ghosts of past and future
records of love or indifference
Heavy Industry Held Lightly (I, II, III), 2025
Polaroid lift on paper.
Where the City Meets its Edges, 2025.
Polaroid lift and graphite on paper.
It’s Always Tomorrow in this Memory, 2025
Polaroid lift on ceramic tile, mild steel, plywood.
Small Town Ephemera, 2025.
Polaroid lift on ceramic tile, mild steel, plywood.
Film of poem ‘Crawling Home on Bloody Knees’ from which the show takes its name. 3 mins 26 seconds.
Original audio, film footage from journey between Yorkshire and London.
Install shot of the film projected in the show.