The Artist Who Turned an Insult Into a T-Shirt | Meet Gemma Lees
Someone once told Gemma Lees that she "presents as a confusing ethnic concoction." She thought that was one for a t-shirt.
Gemma Lees is a performance poet, journalist, facilitator and fine art installationist from Bury - and a proud Romani gypsy whose work sits at the intersection of creativity, protest, identity and community. She's also autistic, diagnosed at 41, and lives with fibromyalgia after years of being dismissed by doctors. Her twenties held a breakdown, a period of homelessness, and being sectioned. None of it, in her telling, is a tragedy that happened to her. It's material - for poems, for installations, for a life she's still building.
Stories Before She Could Read Them
Gemma grew up in a self-employed Romani family, tagging along with her dad on jobs - roofing, painting and decorating, landscaping, selling caravans. "In the Romani community, self-employment is really important," she says, "and a family business idea is really important as well." She struggled with reading as a child and wasn't diagnosed as dyslexic until 21, but her family told stories every evening, passing an ongoing tale about a cat called Fezzipeg back and forth for years. "It didn't matter that I struggled with reading and writing," she says, "because I could create that way."
A Breakdown, and Starting From Nothing
At university, in her second year, life got the better of her. "I couldn't keep up," she says. "It was just too much." She ended up homeless, and was sectioned for the first time at 20. She held onto what support she could find - a young person's hostel, a drama group, her boyfriend Chris, who she'd go on to marry. Looking back on that period now, she holds onto one piece of advice: never take a permanent decision about a temporary problem. She finished her degree part-time, then full-time, graduating with what she calls the longest degree title ever (BA Joint Honours in Creative Writing & Writing For Stage, Screen & Radio), and went on to train as a teacher.
Diagnosis, Decades Later
Dyslexic and dyspraxic at 21. Fibromyalgia in her thirties, after years of being told her pain was growing pains, then pregnancy, then nothing at all, until a female consultant finally named it. Autistic at 41. "There's a reason why I struggled with all this stuff," she says of finally having the language. "I am less critical of myself for not understanding things." In 'what a difference a generation makes' Gemma writes about the gap between her own late diagnosis and her son's, picked up by his nursery teacher before he turned four: there's a relief, she says, but there is a mourning for the child who didn't get what they needed.
The Funeral That Brought Her Back
A second difficult chapter came in her late twenties - a period she describes simply as losing it again. What brought her back to creativity wasn't a plan. It was her grandad's funeral, listening to everything he'd built in a life well lived. "I started to think about my legacy," she says. "I've never wanted to be rich or famous. But I'd love to be respected." That year, she applied for two creative programmes and got onto both. She's been building steadily ever since.
A Confusing Ethnic Concoction
Gemma doesn't look like most people's idea of a Romani gypsy, and she's told so, often, by people who think it's a compliment. Someone once put it more bluntly online, telling her she "presents as a confusing ethnic concoction." Her response: "that is one for a t-shirt." It's the same instinct that runs through her installation work at the Museum of Homelessness and her ongoing project reimagining hostile architecture as a living room - take the thing meant to diminish you, and put it on display instead.
Where She Is Now
Today Gemma is a published poet - her collection A Thousand Years came out last year - and a working installation artist, showing at the Museum of Homelessness and running workshops on Romani craft and identity for councils, schools and closed community groups. She's clear about what she wants people to feel when they experience her work: "I want them to laugh till they cry and cry till they act."
What Gemma's Story Teaches Us
- Identity isn't a costume. You don't have to look like what people expect you to be for your identity to be real.
- A late diagnosis doesn't erase the years before it. It just finally explains them.
- Rejection can become material. Turn the insult into a t-shirt instead of carrying it.
- Support changes everything. A hostel worker, a drama group, a husband who waits round the corner - none of it is small.
- Nothing lasts forever, including the worst of it. Not to take a permanent decision about a temporary problem.
A Final Thought
If you've ever been told you don't look like what you actually are. If you've ever built something out of the years everyone assumed were wasted. If you've ever needed someone to say that a difficult chapter isn't the whole book — this conversation is for you.
Find Gemma
Website: gemmaleesartist.co.uk
Instagram: @gemmathepoet
TikTok: @gemmathepoet83