Jemma Gowland

Jemma Gowland
Jemma Gowland trained for a BSc in Engineering Product Design, working in industrial design and architectural model making before becoming a teacher of Design and Technology, a career she followed for many years. Ceramics became first a hobby, and then a full-time occupation after leaving teaching in 2014. Her deepening interest in the immense possibilities of ceramics as a material led to further study, culminating in the City Lit Ceramics Diploma, London, graduating in 2019. Awards and exhibitions include: Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2023), Royal Cambrian Academy of Art Open Exhibition (2023), Collect Open (2022), Bevere Graduate Award (2019-20), and Potclays student award, Art in Clay (2019).

Jemma Gowland’s 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, denote value yet describe the vulnerability beneath. Her most recent work draws on the traditional history of the figurine, from Meissen to the present; echoing the white unglazed finish with gold lustre. Current themes build on this tradition, with it’s symbolism of the female figure as ornament and object, to highlight issues of growing up female in the modern world. View a Catalogue of the new work.

Jemma Gowland was Highly Commended for the Young Masters Emerging Woman Artist Award in 2023.