Gina Parr was born in Exeter, Devon and originally trained as a Fine Artist. Having graduated with a First Class Honours Degree she went on to Chelsea College of Art to study Set Design for television leading to a 27 year career. In 2007 she started to work full time as an artist, and after living in London for 30 years, found her inspiration in her adult urban life, memories of her rural and coastal Devon childhood and the years of practice as a Designer in the media.


In 2010/11 whilst travelling in France, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, Parr started photographing marks on walls and surfaces as her way of “painting” with her camera whilst on the move. In March 2013 she returned from 2 months photographing a new series of work, Horizon, which was taken, paradoxically, in the overpopulated and chaotic streets in Southern India. Photographed because of their inherent illusion of horizon and form, these chance marks and textures, some of which have been laid down by others with previous intent, become chimerical worlds and fictional places. At Tate Britain ‘Ruin Lust’ is a transhistorical exhibition that covers our interest in ruin from its roots in the 18th Century up to contemporary artists who, like Gina, situate beauty in the remains of modernity.

Both Gina’s painting and photography uncover our complex potential connections and disconnections with form and landscape; the fine line between pure abstraction and figurative recognition.