Jemma Gowland

Sculpture

15 Jul

Written By Lu Ernest Design .

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British artist, Jemma Gowland, originally trained for a BSc in Engineering Product Design, and worked in the fields of industrial design and architectural model making before becoming a teacher of Design and Technology. With experience in using a very broad range of materials for a range of purposes, ceramics became the abiding interest; with its unique versatility and surface possibilities, the technical challenges and opportunities felt endless.

Being a mother, wife and daughter, as well as a woman working in a largely male-oriented field, led Jemma to explore the role of ‘female’ through her art, particularly how societal norms continue to shape the way children are raised.

Jemma’s evocative body of work explores the way that girls are constrained from birth to conform to an appearance and code of behaviour, to present a perfect face and maintain the expectations of others. The use of porcelain, or of stoneware with layered disrupted surfaces, alludes to the vulnerability beneath. Of this, Jemma explains:

“From the moment we are born gender can dictate our future. Individual figures show the young child dressed for display, as a plaything for adults, an entertainment and ornament. Looks and behaviour are already prescribed. Stand up straight, smile nicely, say please.”
Her most recent collection, 'The Tales We Tell,' draws upon her own family history, using imagery from a collection of fairy tale books illustrated by a relative at the turn of the 20th century. In revisiting these oft-repeated tales, she found the depictions created by Grimm, Hans Andersen, and others dark and more unsettling than she remembered.
Jemma’s figures are hand-modelled in porcelain and then left to dry slightly to stiffen before refinements can happen. The figures’ stance is revisited and worked into from all angles. As the expression is taken away by using emotionless masks, body language plays the main role in telling the story of the piece.

Once stiffened, clothes are added. The fabric is often recycled children’s clothing that has been made to fit the figures. A porcelain slip, mixed to Jemma’s own recipe is applied to the fabric, and fibres burn away in the kiln.

The masks on Jemma’s figures are cast from dolls, vintage and modern. Steel dressmaker’s pins add accent, becoming dark and friable when fired. After the first fire, the layers of glaze and oxides are added followed by the top slip layer, which shrinks away revealing the cracked disrupted surface.

For lustre pieces further clear glaze is added and fired, then a special low lustre fire after painting on the magic golden suspension.

Works can be maintained by using a soft brush for dusting.
In 2019, Jemma Gowland won the Potclays Student Award at Art in Clay, Hatfield.

In February 2022, Jemma was featured in New Ceramics / New Keramik international magazine in Feb 2022, in an article entitled: 'Jemma Gowland, Behind the Mask’, written by Eddie Curtis.

Emma won the Potfest Award for her competition piece at Compton Verney, 2022