The paintings of Emma Amos are gentle carnivals. Streams of paint applied together with swathes of cloth form sensual tapestries. Weaving together scenes from her family life, Emma’s work brims with tenderness. Growing up, she was surrounded by civil rights leaders including W.E.B. Du Bois and Zora Neale Hurston, who would often visit her parents. These early encounters foreclosed a commitment to equality and liberation, themes that permeate much of her work, and a desire to assert herself as a black woman in the predominantly white male art world of the 1960s and 70s. Taking up a sensational palette of oranges, blues, browns, yellows, greens and reds, Emma tends towards abstract figures – a couple pressed together, dancing alone in a room, or two women lounging at the pool edge, the backdrop flush with golden sunshine.