Jemma Gunning

Jemma’s practice researches into industrial decline, exploring spaces that have been abandoned and left to fall into disrepair. She has an urge to record our heritage before it is obliterated from our landscapes and our past culture becomes lost.

In 2018 she was awarded a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship to support the development of her technical understanding of intaglio processes. Working closely with master printmakers at the City and Guilds of London Art School, she has refined her working methodologies.

Drawing underpins her practice and informs her printmaking processes. Specialising in etching and stone lithography, these methods resonate with the subjects she come to finds herself exploring and documenting. They use an enforced decay, whereby acids erode metal and physically alter the surface of a limestone, echoing with the natural decay of the architectural forms she draws.

Alongside her practice Jemma works as a technical instructor in the lithography studio at UWE and runs her own print studio in South Bristol. Here she works 1:1 with artists and editions for other printmakers. It is also a space that allows her to continue working on her own practice, pushing her material understanding of the printed mark.

Jemma is a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, Heritage Craft Association and People of Print. She exhibits regular in the UK and internationally.