Gail Hoban

Gail is a visual artist specialising in original ballpoint pen drawings with acrylic paint and salt depicting trees, lichen, mosses and native UK wild plants. She has a deep connection to the natural environment near her North Essex home, sharing her many observations through art. Her intricate work has an underlying message, she is frustrated by the limited and controlled access available to the majority of people. She is conscious of how fragile access to nature is, with many Essex footpaths being over farmland and through private woodlands.

Gail’s previous background in graphic design and branding has led to a love of typography and interest in the power of communication. Gail studies how we are guided through and away from nature by manmade signs. 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 creates a deliberate contrast with the harshness of signs against nature’s overwhelming backdrop, drawing viewers in through the beauty of trees, wild plants and their settings to read the messages in the signs.

Gail also runs workshops around the Cambridge, Suffolk and Essex area, championing accessible art through the use of ballpoint pen and simple washes.