In conversation with Jemma Powell

“I also feel like [painting is] a sort of meditation, it’s a way of connecting to myself and my surroundings. It makes me notice life…”

- Jemma Powell

Jemma Powell

Jemma Powell, an Oxfordshire-based artist, originally from Sussex, is known for her observational landscapes. She is also an accomplished actress having featured in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden, The Stranger, and Foyle’s War to name just a few. 

We caught up a few days before the opening of her exhibition, The Golden Thread. Jemma was so visibly passionate about not just art, but life, and is full of inspiration, whilst being completely inspiring herself – the show consists of almost 50 beautiful paintings, which she completed in just a few months. 

You can currently see The Golden Thread at the Thyme Hotel in Southrop, which will see 25% of profits go to Tusk, an organisation that works tirelessly in African wildlife conservation. 

Hi Jemma, can you tell us about your journey into the art world? You are also an actor, but when and why did you make that shift into being an artist?

I’ve always painted, even as a child. All my family are creatives, my dad is a product designer, my brother’s work in advertising, and my mum is an artist. My earliest memories are just sitting around the dining table or on holidays, my mum always had the biggest box of crayons, and we would just draw. 

I still do act, I don’t want to close that door, but I love that with painting it’s something I can do whenever and wherever I want. Plus, from the minute I pick up the paintbrush to getting a piece framed and then getting it hung in an exhibition, I have total creative control. With acting, I often watched directors have that creative control and I wanted to have that power. But because I was an actor, I was just one small part of that puzzle. 

It feels like I am more creative when I am painting. I feel like painting is a sort of meditation, it’s a way of connecting to myself and my surroundings. It makes me notice life, and I feel more connected to myself – whereas with acting I am disconnected from myself as I am playing someone else, which is still really fun and interesting, but I felt like at this point in my life I wanted to explore myself further and my place in the world. 

What were your paintings like when you were younger?

When I was younger, my art was very, very bright, and free with colour. When you’re young you’re not very affected, you’re much more truthful. Throughout school I was very brave.

But then when I left school and got older, I became more tentative. When I first moved out of London into the countryside, I started doing these tiny flower drawings of snowdrops in our garden.

Someone saw one of these flower drawings and asked me to do an exhibition in London of them, and that’s kind of how this all came about. Looking back, they were so small and not bright at all, they were quite sad, dark backgrounds, with pops of these delicate flowers. It's quite interesting how my work and style has changed.

What do you attribute this change in style to? Do you think it had something to do with how you were feeling about yourself? 

I think it was all about confidence, it was about trusting that I could paint. I didn’t think that I was good enough to paint professionally. And then as I became more confident, and instead started to think “no I can do this”, and I got braver, and bolder, and bigger. 

Going to art classes was something that really helped to build my confidence. I started going to Kieran Stiles’ classes, an Oxfordshire-based artist, who really helped me to have the confidence to find my way around the canvas and know what to paint. It’s quite scary knowing what to do when you pick up a paintbrush. He also taught me how to use oil paints, which I am now completely obsessed with. I love oil paints so much I could eat them; they have been completely life-changing for me.

Cheetah, Jemma. Powell. The Golden Thread, Thyme, Gloucestershire.

Are there any other creatives or artists that inspire you?

Rose Hilton was one of the St Ives painters, I love her use of colour and am really inspired by her and her work. She was married to Roger Hilton who was a very famous abstract painter, he said to her that there wasn’t room for them both to be painters, and so she would paint in secret, until she hit 40 and started painting professionally.

And I love that because I didn’t start painting until I was 35, so it gave me hope that it wasn’t too late. There is always this feeling when you’re a woman that it’s too late, especially when you’ve had kids, so I found her hugely inspirational. She was so cool and had such attitude. 

Can you tell us a bit about your show The Golden Thread?

The show centres on the idea that we are all so interconnected and that we all have a responsibility to the natural world. There is this invisible, fragile, delicate, golden thread that interconnects us all and our actions have such a ripple effect all across the world.

When looking at the entire exhibition, it looks as though I could be a bit disjointed in my subject matter because there’s a mix of landscapes, people, animals, and even some abstract pieces. But I think it will force people to engage with the pieces, to try to figure out what the link is between them. 

25% of the profits from the show will go to Tusk, which is a really important charity that I am actually an ambassador for. They go into local communities and educate people across Africa on the importance of the environment and looking after animals, and they also manage conservancies across the continent too.

Jemma Powell, Caryn Hibbert, Founder of Thyme Hotel and Charlie Mayhew, Founder and CEO of Tusk at the opening of The Golden Thread, Thyme, Gloucestershire.

What are some of the back stories of the pieces in the show? 

On one of my trips to Kenya I visited this family, the husband, Oder, used to be a poacher, but now after going through Tusk’s education programme and being given new work opportunities, he is now instead employed to patrol the beach at night, protecting the turtles from poachers. Oder features in one of my paintings. 

When talking to Oder and his family, I asked them how they spend their money, and they told me they go to the local market in Lamu and buy produce for the family. I then went to the same market and saw this stall with two women behind selling produce and decided to also paint them. Do you see now how the work that Tusk does has such a ripple effect?

Then there are a whole series of other paintings from my trip to Lamu, including the families I met and landscapes – it’s a case of piecing it all together to make a story.

Did you get to see any of the animals you’ve painted when you were in Kenya?

Yes, I went to Lawa which is a conservancy in Kenya that Tusk do a lot of work with. A lot of the money that Tusk raises goes towards the conservancy and paying the rangers, who work tirelessly to protect all of the wildlife from poachers. 

I saw lots of grévy’s zebra when I was there, and one features in a painting. They used to be a very endangered breed, but now there are a huge amount of them that are protected in Lawa. They have these really sweet little Mickey Mouse ears and they are very unusual as they have very thin stripes compared to other zebras.

I also painted an elephant that I had a real connection with. When she was approaching with her babies in tow, she stopped and slightly lifted her foot and did a kind of circular motion with it. At first, I thought she was going to charge at me, but the Maasai guide that I was with explained to me that she was scanning me to tell if I was a danger to her and her children. When she realised that I wasn’t a danger, she turned to wave her babies over, and came so close to me that I could have reached out and touched her.

One day we also came across a lion, it walked straight past me and the Maasai guide I was with. I noticed there seemed to be a kind of natural understanding between my guide and the lion, but I was still told to stand my ground, puff out my chest and not be scared.

The conservancy is such a beautifully run place, everyone that works there is such an integral part of the community, and they are all so proud and knowledgeable of their surroundings. Whereas before an animal might have been seen as a threat, people living there now understand that we must protect them and the natural world. 

How did you then go away and pull all these incredible ideas and observations together into this collection?

Conservation is a huge topic that is discussed a lot in written word, speeches, documentaries, but I don’t think many people are expressing and discussing it in art – so that’s what I wanted to do. I want to create paintings in a journalistic way, with facts and reality, but also provide enough mystery that I provide my viewers with the opportunity to create their own stories behind the pictures. 

I like to work from my imagination, so there are a few more abstract pieces in the show, mainly landscapes. For example, I wanted to try and capture that feeling when you’re out in the dark and the only light is from the moon so you can see some colours and shapes, but not enough that a phone or camera would pick it up – it’s such a mysterious, magical feeling.

In terms of actually painting the paintings, I brought a massive tube filled with rolled up bits of canvas with me to Kenya, so lots of the pieces I started there and then I brought them back with me to finish in my studio. 

Mother and Children Jemma Powell. The Golden Thread, Thyme, Gloucestershire.

What made you want to exhibit your work at Thyme?

One of the paintings in the show features a little warbler, which is a bird that migrates from the water meadow here at Thyme all the way to Kenya. There is also a species of kingfisher that makes the same journey – linking the two places together.

I knew I wanted to do a show and raise money for Tusk, but then some of the people from Thyme came to my show in London and said they would love me to do a show here. So, I had an idea that I could go to Kenya and then exhibit the works here. Then I read Caryn Hibbert’s – founder of Thyme – essay which is also called The Golden Thread – it’s actually where the title of my show comes from. It is a beautiful essay about how we are all interconnected, and then I decided to call the show the Golden Thread too because it just worked so perfectly.

There’s so many people to mention that helped to pull this all together, in essence it’s Cricket Fine Art (my gallery) presenting Jemma Powell at Thyme Hotel in aid of Tusk. 

What feelings and emotions do you want people to take away from your show?

I was so moved by what I saw and experienced in Africa, I wanted to become a sort of vessel for that kind of excitement but also feeling humble – like when you see an elephant, it’s just such a privilege. 

I wanted to use myself to channel that feeling and put it on to canvas, so people can have that same experience, and joy, and feelings of pride in the world that we all live in. And communicate the fact that we all need to do our bit in protecting it. 

Is the show also about trying to educate people, just as Tusk does?

Definitely, but in a non-preachy way. I want people to feel empowered rather than preached at. I want people to feel like they can be in control and do their bit – the tiniest thing can have such a massive ripple effect.

I also think sometimes people can feel a bit powerless, so it’s really about giving people their power back. And I just wanted people to think “wow life really is beautiful” – it’s hard to always remember that when we’re living in the grey gloom. 

Do you have any advice to younger people or anyone starting out in a creative industry?

I think simply trusting yourself is some of the best advice I was ever given. Your response to something is interesting and that it is enough, your authenticity is enough. 

If you’re painting, make a mark and then make another mark, and then have a response to that, and keep going. That’s all painting is, it’s just one stroke after the next. It’s about trusting it and going for it. Being bold and making mistakes. 

And I would say, in this day and age, where we have Instagram, the internet, and places to show your work, make use of it. Don’t paint in secret. When I started posting my work, I got noticed by a gallery and then it went from there. I don’t think you’re an artist until you start sharing your work. 

What about when you’re not painting, what else do you like doing in your free time?

I love gardening, walking with my four dogs – we have a rescue sheepdog and three cockapoos – and I love pottering around at home, being in nature, collecting flowers with my little girls, playing with my children, going to London and seeing exhibitions or going to the theatre, cooking… the list is endless.

How do you find going into London and being in the city now after having lived in the countryside for some years?

I love London and all it has to offer – there’s so much going on it’s amazing. But with a family, and dogs, and both me and my husband being in creative industries – he’s a singer, we just prefer to live in the countryside and then go into London as a special trip and use it in the way that we want to. 

I found that when I was living in London, I was spending so much money to just sit at home on a Saturday night and watch Strictly Come Dancing.

Do you have any favourite spots in London that you recommend?

I love the Royal Academy of Arts, I love all the parks, and I love just wandering around as it’s such a beautiful city. I never really appreciated how beautiful it is when I lived there. 

One thing I did love when I lived in London was getting the bus instead of the tube for my morning commute, the tube is a bit miserable and everyone is just looking at their phones, at least you can look at all the beautiful buildings when you’re on a bus!

Jemma’s show, The Golden Thread, is on at Thyme Hotel until the new year and we couldn’t recommend it enough. It is quite an incredible experience viewing paintings depicting people, animals, and landscapes in Kenya all the way in Oxfordshire – whilst it feels like a million miles away, maybe it really isn’t that far at all if a tiny bird can fly between the two…

Website: jemmapowell.com

Instagram: @powell.jemma.art

Interview by Mollie Cohen