Artist Statement:
“I paint to nourish the human soul”.
My art is an expression of my experiences, emotions, inspirations, and stories, things that are personal to me, yet relatable to others. I find it rewarding when people make an emotional connection with my art.
My creative process is instinctive and spontaneous, playful, and experimental. It is experiencing the art of wonder that motivates me the most. I am drawn to the act of creation, the process itself.
I mostly paint figurative forms; my figures represent no particular person or personality, but are composites of people combined to create mysterious image. I typically prefer my forms to remain ambiguous and dimly lit to keep them from being representative of a certain person or identifiable figure.
As a mixed media artist, I incorporate a variety of materials, including house paint, pastels, charcoal, oil, acrylic, and spray paint, into my work. My choice of materials is dictated by the effects I want to achieve. I like to say Home Depot is my art supply store. I juxtapose real and implied texture with organic forms creating an abstract expressionism figurative artwork that has a visual push and pull.
My artwork mostly focuses on support and unity of females. I explore womanhood, celebrating female strength and wisdom.
I often add doves, expressing peace, love, hope, and new beginnings. I often add animals to my work. Animals have always been a constant in my life, showing me honesty, integrity, and compassion. Most of the valuable lessons in my life have been learned through observing animals and nature, therefore they both play prominent places in my work and in my life. I find an emotional connection to the world through nature. Nature provides me with endless inspiration allowing me to translate my feelings and experiences into my art.
I want to push the boundaries of art to pull in and stretch different components of style and design without losing the narrative and good design. I strive to create work that will not be considered boring or too familiar.
About the Artist
Gail was a child of a military father; she was born in Germany and spent her first six years there. Every opportunity her family explored the castles, museums, landscapes, and forests of Germany. Gail’s favorite outings were those to art museums. She remembers always getting in trouble for being fixated on a work of art and not keeping up with the rest of the family as they moved from painting to painting. She loved studying the brushstrokes, use of colors, and the way artists used values in their paintings. As an adult she still studies works of art with the same enthusiasm and sense of awe she had as a child, and her art reflects that continued enthusiasm and sense of awe.
She recently retired as a high school art teacher after 25 years in education and started to pursue her dream as a professional artist. Gail is now in private collections throughout the United States and exhibits her artwork in galleries throughout Arizona.