Studio
GEM Eco Studio is a UK-based, material-led studio working with plant and earth-based colour to create bespoke natural dyes and art materials for art, design, stage and screen.
Founded by Grace Emily Manning, the studio is rooted in a practice of gathering, making and material exploration.
Pigment, dye and ink are made slowly - from soil, ash, stone and plant - shaped by hand and process.
Rooted in landscape, the studio moves across sites and seasons, with dye plants grown and gathered through Birmingham allotments, Herefordshire, London and Kent, with an ongoing pull toward the Thames Estuary.
Founded by Grace Emily Manning, the studio is rooted in a practice of gathering, making and material exploration.
•
Pigment, dye and ink are made slowly - from soil, ash, stone and plant - shaped by hand and process.
Rooted in landscape, the studio moves across sites and seasons, with dye plants grown and gathered through Birmingham allotments, Herefordshire, London and Kent, with an ongoing pull toward the Thames Estuary.
•
Colour today is largely industrial.
Synthetic dyes, plastics and chemical binders dominate both textiles and art materials - often produced overseas, with significant impact on water systems and local ecologies.
GEM Eco Studio works in response to this.
There are very few small-batch producers of plastic-free plant and earth-based art materials and dyes in the UK - fewer still working across the full cycle, from growing and gathering to making.
Developing local, low-toxicity alternatives, the studio explores how colour can be made differently - through plant, mineral and waste streams - with processes that return safely to the ground.
Soil to soil.
•
At its core, the work is about re-wilding colour.
Returning material to source.
Bringing process back into the hand.
Reintroducing plant and earth-based making into studios, schools and shared spaces.
From young hands learning through matter, to performance design and creative industries seeking lower-impact approaches, the work moves across scales - always grounded in material and place.
•
Materials are not standardised.
They are grown, foraged, burned, soaked, shifted over time.
Ochre is ground from earth.
Ink emerges through tannin steam.
Charcoal is made through fire and air.
Dye holds the memory of plant and season.
Each carries variation, instability, and life.
•
The studio is led by artist and material researcher Grace Emily Manning.
Her practice began in performance design, working across set, costume and film, before moving into experimental animation.
Across these forms, a consistent thread emerged:
a desire to embed story not only in image, but in material itself - weaving narrative into cloth, surface and space.
This expanded through years of working outdoors - gardening, foraging and handling plant matter daily - where material became not just a medium, but a starting point.
GEM Eco Studio grew from this intersection:
land, process, and imagination.
•
Today, the studio operates as both:
- a material atelier
- a site for learning, making and exchange
Developing artist-made materials, workshops, dye processes and collaborative projects that reconnect material to place.