Georgia Semple UK, b. 1995

Georgia is a London-based artist exploring identity, faith, addiction, and connection through richly layered paintings. Rooted in her Guyanese heritage, she constructs imagined scenes of Black communities that blend family archives with broader cultural narratives. Her practice encompasses painting and ceramics, incorporating forms inspired by ancient rock carvings through blends of collaging, embroidery, acrylic, and oil to create intricate yet distorted visual narratives that reflect the fluidity of self-perception.
She contrasts thin, delicate layers applied with dry brushes against thick, gestural strokes, often revealing parts of monochromatic underpaintings. Through this process, figures and objects shift between clarity and obscurity, mirroring the tension between perception and reality. Earthy palettes contrast with vivid highlights, while embroidery references ancient Guyanese cultural garments, adorned with motifs derived from petroglyphs.
At the heart of her work is the desire to glorify God and reflect teachings of the Bible that she grew up with, often beginning with inspiration from particular scriptures that reshape her understanding of the world around her. Her paintings wrestle with faith, the spiritual cost of sin and the ways in which it’s exchanged, both physically and metaphysically, and the challenge of living by spiritual values in a world often at odds with them. She draws inspiration from religious iconography, Guyanese craftsmanship, and scenes from favourite books and films that resonate with struggles and personal ideologies she connects to identity.
Through surreal scenes layered with satirical elements, she invites viewers to navigate the tension between personal conviction and cultural expectation.