Gemma Lessinger

I am a contemporary artist based in Cornwall, and my practice centres on the transformation of discarded textiles into textured seascapes.

Following a twenty-year career in the fashion industry, I witnessed firsthand the environmental impact of large-scale clothing production and overconsumption. My work responds directly to that experience, reclaiming fabric waste and re-situating it within layered coastal landscapes.

Through the physical act of embedding textile fragments into paint, I explore the parallels between cloth and landscape - both holding memory, both shaped by pressure, movement, and time.

The ocean serves is my subject: a space of rhythm, containment, and quiet power. While my work evokes stillness and embodied calm, it also carries an undercurrent of environmental consequence, transforming materials once associated with excess into objects of permanence and contemplation.

Texture is central to my process. Frayed edges, fibres, and layered surfaces create tactile depth, inviting close viewing and reinforcing the material origins of each piece. By repositioning discarded textiles within expansive seascapes, I ask viewers to consider what we choose to preserve, what we discard, and how material can be reimagined....

Porthmeor Programme - St Ives School of Painting
Newlyn School of Art – Experimental Landscape Short Course with Anthony Garrett
BA Hons Degree - Fashion
Art & Design GNVQ
Photography & Graphics A Level

Art Space Art Fair, Anantara Panierna Palace, Marbella, Spain (2025)
Inspire Makers, Falmouth, Cornwall (2025)
The National Lobster Hatchery, Padstow, Cornwall (2025)
The Old Lifeboat House, Porthleven, Cornwall (2024 & 2025)
Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Cornwall — Storm Warning (2023–24)
Rock Institute, Rock, Cornwall (2022)
Outlined Gallery, London (2021)