Nov 18, 20221 min read

Creative Matters with Jessica Gurnsey

Jessica Gurnsey is an 18 year old artist from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland currently based in Pōneke Wellington.

In 2022 Jess became the youngest ever recipient of the NZ Adam Portraiture Award with her self portrait Lady Day. Her paintings have also been recognised through the National Youth Art Awards where she was the overall winner in 2021 and the winner of her category in 2022, the Kumeu Arts Awards 2022 where she won her category and just recently it has been announced that her painting Shady at Midnight has been chosen to be part of the Wellington Regional Arts Review.

Jess and I have a lovely chat in my studio about how she has suddenly become a well known painter at such a young age and how that feels, how she sees her art practice, what inspires her and how she is capturing her life through her painting.

Her story will be super inspiring for young art students and emerging artists but also for more established and older artists - as a young woman Jess has a great fresh outlook on life and her career and I have no doubt in 10 years time we will be seeing even bigger things from this very special young artist.