Gunnett, Sally
Hoops book
Rust prints on handmade artists book
2019
This is a book of rust prints made from metal hoops I collected whilst walking with my eldest son while he napped as a baby. I used to notice them on the pavement as I was walking around our local area and started collecting them. I created this book as a record of the routes I took and time I spent walking.
My art practice, as it is now, relationship to my local area and journey as a parent have all developed together over the past six years, since becoming pregnant with my eldest son, influencing and feeding into each other. I work with processes which can be completed in stages in small pockets of time, during naptimes for example, these include cyanotypes, lumen prints, ecoprinting, rust printing and solar dyeing. I am interested in their unpredictable nature as processes and allowing for this unpredictability has become an important feature of my practice. My art practice centres around documenting locations, most of which are local to where I live, and making records of those areas using natural elements such as plants, river or rain water, soil and rust. My most recent project has been documenting a section of the river Thames, near where I live, where I walked regularly whilst pregnant with my youngest son, taking photos at low tide of the river bed and then developing these using plant-based photography developer made with seabeet growing alongside the Thames and river water.
After a rural upbringing I moved to London in 2000 and have lived and worked there since. I graduated with a degree in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College in 2003 and recently completed an MA in Education (Artist Teacher Practice) at Oxford Brookes University with distinction. I am currently working as a freelance artist and teacher having previously taught art and photography in mainstream education for over a decade, becoming a head of department before deciding to concentrate on my own art practice after giving birth to my eldest son. I have work in private and public collections internationally and have exhibited nationally including at the Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair. I completed a residency in 2018 as part of the New: Defence arts project in Essex which culminated in a solo exhibition of the work I created. I teach workshops and online courses in the processes I work with.
