Gail Hoban

Gail Hoban is a visual artist combining original drawings with paint and print. Gail has a deep connection to the natural environment near her home of 28 years in Quendon, Essex. She wants to inspire others to celebrate the details of nature on the doorstep. She meanders through the woodlands and meadows near to her home, delighting in tiny seasonal changes, both foraging and capturing images for inspiration using her phone camera.

Gail graduated in 1986 in Information Graphics at Trent Polytechnic. She worked in the graphic design industry for nearly 40 years. Alongside bringing up her two children she also lectured in art and design culminating in leading a higher education Foundation Degree supporting Graphic Design and Fine Art students from the University of Hertfordshire. At the beginning of 2024 Gail closed her BCorp branding business and began to explore art as a more focussed practice at the end of 2024.

Gail is fascinated by pattern and organic form, with a focus on trees, lichen, mosses and native wild plants. Wandering at the edges of privately owned lands, following public footpaths, Gail is also interested in how land is partitioned and how landowners communicate the boundaries. Bringing her graphic design experience to look at manmade signs juxtapositioned within natural settings and their stark contrasts. Gail’s practice follows the seasons, she is currently focussing on drawings and prints on paper that represent the intricate patterns formed by bare branches of winter trees and bark textures. Drawn from her photos using ball point pen, with acrylic paint and salt washes that drift or explode through the branches like mist and lichen. In the summertime, Gail switches her focus to rewilded meadows and wild plants.