The world of Gemma Koomen
Wildflowers, tiny houses, watchful animals, birds in flight, and small figures moving through large, dreamlike landscapes - welcome to the world of...
Wildflowers, tiny houses, watchful animals, birds in flight, and small figures moving through large, dreamlike landscapes - welcome to the wonderful world of Gemma Koomen.
Working in gouache and ink, Gemma creates paintings and illustrations about “small people in big places, animals that you could maybe have a conversation with, thoughtful objects and tiny homes”. Gemma’s passion for drawing and painting began in childhood, when she filled the backs of her artist father’s discarded screenprints with imagined worlds made in crayon and pencil. She later studied Fine Art Photography at Glasgow School of Art before completing an master’s degree in Illustration.
Her work is rooted in close attention - to nature, to the changing seasons, and to the small details that might otherwise pass us by. Now based in Northumberland, Gemma draws inspiration from the life around her: hedgerow flowers, birds, the changing weather.
There is a sense of storytelling in every image. A hare and lapwings, a summer solstice sky, a path through flowers - each piece feels like a fragment of a larger tale, inviting us to pause and imagine the rest. At The Longship we stock a selection of Gemma Koomen cards and prints online and in our bricks and mortar store in Kirkwall. Thoughtful, gentle pieces for sending, framing, or keeping close at hand, they bring a little of Gemma’s strange and beautiful world into the everyday. Click here to view more.
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