Gail Mason – Between Print and Paint

“The Surrey-born and North Somerset-based painter printmaker Gail Mason works on the tantalising cusp between abstraction, with its repertoire of autonomous, gestural mark making, and naturalistic representation of landscape.” (Peter Davies)

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Drawing from imagination and many years of living in the countryside, my work is characterised by exuberant gestural paintings of semi-abstract landscapes. Looking to nature to inspire and delight me, I create fictive environments, and revel in colour using it to set the emotional tone. I aim to offer a sense of perspective, invite reflection, and celebrate the restorative and hopeful aspects of our world.

Taking colour for a dance rather than ‘a line for a walk’, speed and gesture combined with periods of reflection and careful editing result in paintings that allow the viewer a space for daydreaming.

Forms are suggested rather than dictated. The works are built up in many layers with transparent and opaque paint, employing dissonance and harmony, adding and subtracting as the image emerges.

Following a Masters in Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking in 2004 (my MA show was purchased by the University of the West of England and is on permanent display at their Frenchay campus) I am now based at Spike Print Studios in Bristol as a regular tutor in both silkscreen and oil based printmaking processes. 

I have received several national awards, and am an elected member of Somerset Printmakers, Bath Society Of Artists and the Royal West of England Academy Artists Network. I show widely across the UK and London including the Mall Galleries and Bankside, and have been selected for the Royal Academy. 

Awards include

  • Cambridge Invitational Art Contest 2019
  • The Mall Galleries London Society of Women Artists 2018, Premier Art Materials Prize
  • Bath Art Fair 2019 Runner Up Visitors Choice
  • Printfest Cumbria 2018 Chris Benefield Award
  • Printfest Cumbria 2018 Visitors Choice 
  • Royal West Of England Emerging Artist Prize 
  • Mall Galleries London Curwen Studio Prize Originals Printmaking   
  • Bath Society of Artists Graphic Prize
  • Clevedon Art Club 2018 Selectors Choice 
  • Clifton Art 2018 Selectors Choice 

 Exhibitions include   

  • ‘B r e a t h e’  solo show The Bishops Palace Well
  • The Society Of  Women Artists Mall Galleries London
  • RWA Autumn Open Bristol
  • ‘Encre au 3993’ Romanville Paris
  • Royal Academy Summer Exhibition
  • Wells Art Contemporary
  • National Original Print, Bankside, London
  • The Bowery Gallery, Leeds
  • Yorkshire Sculpture Park 
  • Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds
  • Bite’ Contemporary Printmaking Mall Galleries London
  • ‘12 Printmakers’ Atkinson Gallery, Stroud
  • Sarah Wiseman Gallery, Easter Showcase, Oxford
  • ‘Radiance’ Solo Show, Chapel Row Gallery, Bath. 
  • Northern Print Biennale, Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
  • Piano Nobile Gallery, London
  • ‘Originals’ National Print Open Exhibition Mall Galleries, London