ABOUT GEMMA COOK

 

​Gemma is a dynamic artist. Her work seeks to understand and express human experience. Her main mediums of choice are charcoal and oil.

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Gemma creates life-drawings that capture movement and emotion. Gemma has a unique freedom of practice which she believes is facilitated by an innate knowledge of the human body developed through her background as a physiotherapist. 

 

Gemma’s pieces are gestural and responsive and she considers life-drawing a relationship between the artist, the model and the environment.  She uses her whole body when she draws and produces pictures at speed. This is reflected in the size and expressiveness of her work, which can be 3-dimensional in nature. Although Gemma’s work can appear instantaneous, she has developed an extremely disciplined process with regard  to her art practice, and is meticulous in managing the messiness of charcoal to ensure a pristine background. She chooses not to fix her work, as she aims to retain the raw expressiveness of the charcoal and its spray. ​

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Gemma enjoys adapting this technique for performative drawing. 

 

Gemma ​​​began life drawing nearly twenty years ago which proved pivotal to her interdisciplinary career. She now combines practising as an artist with academic research, and working as a global disability consultant. She is currently a doctoral researcher and uses art as method to understand policy experiences of adults living with cerebral palsy. This has involved working in a co-creative team to create art outputs such as poetry film.
 

She began lifedrawing at Sketchpaddrawing in Herne Hill, and  is now a regular attender at the Sussex County Arts Club. She also practices from her own art studio in Brighton. Gemma enjoys the supportive and intimate environment of The Sussex County Arts Club which she believes facilitates her practice.​

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Academic Achievements

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• Doctoral Researcher - Grand Union Doctoral Training Pathway - ESRC Funded Scholarship - Hosted by Brunel University London

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• MSc - Global Health Policy, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

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• BSc - Physiotherapy - King's College London

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• BA - Combined Arts - University of Liverpool

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Employment 

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Gemma has conducted multiple disability consultancies for different organisations including the European Disability Forum, evaluating its programme in Ukraine (ongoing); she has recently worked with Innovation Leader The Catapult to research what a disability inclusive future air travel service would look like; and she worked as a physiotherapy manager with The International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan across several rehabilitation centres in 2012. Prior to working as a disability consultant, Gemma was a team lead neurological physiotherapist in several different teaching hospitals. She believes her work experience is inseparable from and integral to her art. 

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