Interview by Janne Ryan | Photography by daniel boud, maddy ritchie,Xun Chi, Ian Douglas, Carine Thévenau
WHAT DO YOU DO?
I’m an artist and designer, creating illustrations, murals, and pieces of art for advertising and gallery spaces. A lot of my work centres around the written word, lettering and typography. I love language and how it relates to the human experience.
YOUR JOURNEY and INFLUENCES?
Painting and drawing was a big part of my childhood. My parents encouraged creativity. But I ended up studying arts/law at University of Queensland, only to get about a third of the way through before realising I didn’t know why I had chosen that path. Then suddenly I just dropped out.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
I enrolled in a graphic design course thinking it would be an entry point to being an artist. I remember the day I went onto the computer and looked up ‘What is a graphic design degree?’ I remember feeling a sense of excitement and freedom in making that decision. I think it was the first time I had agency over my life.
TIMING WO •
Lately, we’ve been featuring some of our 2016 New Visual Artists—PRINT’s annual list of the 15 best creatives working today under 30. If you haven’t already, meet the brilliant Gemma O’Brien. Here, she discusses her influences, her work, and how her career has evolved.
Photo by Elle Green
Age: 29.
From: Brisbane, Australia.
Current city: Sydney, Australia.
Education: University of New South Wales: College of Fine Arts (BA, Design).
Earliest creative memory: Winning a first-grade painting competition with an artwork of my pet chicken Rosie.
Path that led you to design: I quit law school after a year and realized I needed to be doing something creative for the rest of my life. So I switched to a design degree and fell in love with typography after learning to hand-set type in the letterpress studio. From that point forward I have been developing a practice that sits between art, illustration, design and typography.
Career in a nutshell: I got noticed in the type world back in 2008 when I made an experimental video where I drew lettering on my body for a university proje
•
Nicole: I was wondering if you've met any left handed calligraphers? I'm left handed.
G: In my workshops, there's often left handed people, who have different methods. Some of them do the opposite, so instead of pulling on that downward stroke they will push. But there's a guy on Instagram who's actually from Australia who's an amazing brush letterer, called Matt, I'll give you his Instagram afterwards, but he has many tutorials and he uses a left handed brushstroke. He often uses like a smaller brush pens so he can come over the top so he doesn't have to slide over as much.
R: Any questions from the internet audience?
The questions have been shortened, and not all questions from the internet audience have been included in this transcript.
Ryan: How do you go about freehanding your large-scale murals?
G: Okay, I never freehand them, that's a myth.
The illusion of freehand is very appealing in every part of art, I think, but usually at the point where someone sees, especially on Instagram. There's been a whole series of background sketches; maybe if it's been li