The Artist

Born in Slough, Gemma Lessinger grew up with a city life, but as a child she would holiday in Cornwall every year with her parents and siblings, spending her days building sand castles and playing in the sea, and it wasn’t long before the county stole her heart.

After a career in buying and production roles in the fashion industry, in 2011, Gemma and her husband finally moved to the place she’d always dreamed of calling home, but in 2019 she had to admit that something was missing, just in time for a global pandemic:

“For the first time in as long as I can remember, I had to stop. I didn’t know what to do with myself. We were so lucky that we were living in our little cottage just outside of Newquay, but we were just that little bit too far away from the ocean to walk to it. I not only found myself completely stationary, but also not able to visit my beloved ocean.  Slowing down like that made me look within to what I yearned to do, and for the first time in years I realised what had been missing from my life; it was painting. I missed the ocean so much, watching the colours in the water, the white-water patterns, the noise of the swell crashing against the shoreline. I hadn’t planned to paint the ocean, it just happened because I yearned to be stood on the sandy shore, feeling the water lapping at my feet.”

After an incredibly positive response to her first few pieces, Gemma continued to experiment with her technique.

 “One day I decided to paint an aerial view of the shoreline at Holywell Bay. I still to this day don’t know what made me think to do an aerial view, I just listened to my creative instincts that were finally flourishing because the world had stopped. I couldn’t stop painting after that point. That first aerial piece, Holywell Bay Shoreline, was the starting point of me finding my style.”

“Colour for me is so expressive, it can take you back to a moment in time, a feeling, a memory. It can bring a mood or emotion into a room or onto a body. I guess this is the closest link for me between my two worlds and great loves; fashion and painting. But as much as fashion can be used to express, the physical act of painting, of blending colours so that every piece has its own story to tell, its own emotions to convey, that is why I paint.”

Cornwall Beach Art

Gemma’s work is almost sculptural and has varying levels of depth to draw you in to take a closer look. She is constantly experimenting in an effort to build this texture and depth that her pieces are now so recognisable for. 

“My starting point is to visit and research the shoreline I am going to working on. I have a drone which I use to gather aerial photos and videos of the location. I love using it to help me view things I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to see, such as colour patterns in the water, light bouncing off a wave, details in the white water that you would never see from the shore. I then gather sand and any other artifacts from the shoreline to use within the piece or keep me inspired while I work.”

In her more recent pieces she uses fibreglass offcuts, from surfboard manufacturer Rochfort Surfboards Immediately she discovered the ‘fabric’ could be manipulated with the use of paint to build beautiful texture and curves of wave crests. That was how her re-purposing ethos begun to creep into her seascape art.

Gemma has now re-purposed surfboards destined for landfill, old skateboard decks, wooden belly boards, even old surfboard fins, using them as a ‘canvas’. Each piece being repaired to some extent, but still telling the story of their previous life in some way.

This has then lead onto her developing the re-cycled surfboard idea even further, working very closely with Newquay based printer The Logical Choice Group and Rochfort Surfboards. Three Cornish businesses coming together to create a unique piece of surf art. With Gemma’s art being printed on fibreglass, Rochfort Surfboards then repairs the old board and laminates it onto the surfboard using his incredible craftsmanship.

Strikingly vibrant, each of Gemma’s pieces presents us with a beautiful new perspective of the places any Cornwall dweller will hold dear, and take us on a unique journey to the places of our childhood.

Since Gemma started her business in early 2020, she has built a community of followers across multiple platforms, who she hopes to inspire daily, with her love for Cornwall, creativity and the joy in running your own business.

“If I hadn’t moved to Cornwall, to fall so in love with the ocean, I am not sure I would have picked up my paintbrushes again, I love exploring the county and never fail to be surprised by a new little cove. I have particularly found in my latest work that I don’t even need to discover a new place. My closest beaches, that I visit on a daily basis hold so much changing natural beauty. As the seasons and the tides change so do the colours in the water, the momentum and power in the waves. I could study one beach for the rest of my life and think I could create an ever- evolving body of work.”