Gemma Brown

About the work

My work explores a relationship to place during a time of rapid environmental change. Incorporating waste material from industrial process, I use experimental ceramics to respond to places of anthropogenic intervention.

In my process, I visit and observe sites of construction, demolition and residential expansion in my local area. Evidence of our relationships with our environments are unearthed through the industrial processes taking place there.

Rock, clay and debris collected at these sites are combined with industrial waste products and commercial materials in the studio, which often produces unexpected results.

The forms that emerge from these results reflect the competing and coalescing human and environmental energies present in the sites I have visited. For me, my work becomes a repository of a point in time and place. It helps me to reconcile with tensions in our ecologies and imagine ongoing relationships with environments and place in flux.

Image credits to the artist

About the artist

Gemma Brown is an artist working primarily in ceramics on unceded Ngunnawal/ Ngambri land. Through a practice based in curiosity and play, her experimental processes exploit material properties of industrial waste and commercial ceramic materials. Gemma responds to what she sees in the environments around her, with an emphasis on exploring human relationships with the environment during a time of rapid environmental change.

She has completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at the Australian National University and previously completed a Certificate IV in Visual Arts (ceramics) at Tas TAFE in 2018.