Jemma Gunning

Jemma is a Bristol based artist who specialises in printmaking, working from her own studio in Backwell. She studied a BA in Drawing for Fine Art Practice and completed a masters in Multidisciplinary Printmaking at UWE. She is a member of the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers and Heritage Craft Association. Her work is in private and public collections including the V&A in London and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Jemma has been awarded many grants to support her practice. In 2018 she was awarded a QEST scholarship to work with master printmaker Jason Hicklin at the City and Guilds Art School where she learnt the fundamentals of Intaglio printmaking. Her work has been published in many magazines and books including Expressive Printmaking by Mary Doulton and Collaboration in Practice - British Lithography 1880-2022 by Paul Croft. In 2016 Jemma co-founded Bristol Print Collective where their aim is to share their love of printmaking with diverse audiences by running pop up workshops across the city and beyond. Jemma offers 1:1 tuition and specialist collaborative project work from her studio.

Drawing underpins her practice and informs her printmaking processes. With a love for intaglio and lithographic processes, and the connection that they have with our relationship with the environment; Jemma’s work captures our fading heritage, offering us a portal into the past. Like our presence, the use of acids in her printmaking practice physically manipulates the surface of metals and stones, resonating with the impact humanity has on our planet.

On the surface Jemma’s prints may appear dark and gloomy, after all, they are her visual interpretation of decay and dereliction found in post-industrial landscapes. However, look more closely and you’ll notice that there is life within these ruins where mother nature has started to reclaim our waste lands and new ecosystems have started to immerge. 

 www.jemmagunning.com

jemma_gunning@hotmail.co.uk

@jemma_gunning_printmaker

 Images (from left)

• Unity Works IV Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint, 60 x 42xm
• Elizabeth Shaw Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint 60 x 42cm
• Tyres Etching Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint 60 x 42cm
• Old Factory Cooperage Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint 50 x 69.5
• Permanite Asphalt Works V Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint, 22  x 30cm 
• Permanite Asphalt Works II Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint 44.5 x 60cm
• Robinsons and Sons Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint 49 x 30cm 
• Permainte Asphalt Works IV Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint 49.5 x 30cm
• Permanite Asphalt Works Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint 60 x 38
• Welsh Asylum Etching, including hardground, sugarlift aquatint 59.5 x 42cm