Gayle Nelson is a visual artist based in Cupar, Fife. She graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee with a First Class Honours Degree in Fine Art (Drawing & Painting) in 1992. She uses a wide variety of media including installation and performance, to communicate ideas both within and outwith the gallery context. Much of her work centres around situations and experiences which create insecurity and neurosis, and conversely the things in life which give a sense of security and place. Recent work with found-photographs, memories and keepsakes, using stories from personal experiences and difficulties and those of others, Nelson create visual narratives which illustrate our fragility and hopefulness as human beings.

In the years following graduation, Gayle Nelson spent five years in San Francisco, California where she exhibited regularly and undertook a number of internships in curatorial practice, gallery administration, and fund-raising in the non-profit sector. She also worked as a visual arts columnist reviewing work by artists throughout the U.S. She has travelled widely, and following her time in the United States, spent a further four years in France.

Gayle is a founding member and Visual Arts Co-ordinator of Cupar Arts & Heritage Project (CAHP), an organisation which was formed in 2008 to address the lack of provision for the arts in North East Fife.

She has many years experience in desktop publishing, and is responsible for the design and production of all Cupar Arts Festival publicity and marketing materials, including the website which she designed and now manages. She is currently a lecturer at Elmwood College in Cupar.

Gayle Nelson has exhibited both in the UK and overseas, and has won a number of awards including, most recently, the SSA Grampian Hospitals Purchase Prize. She was elected to the serve on the SSA Council in 2009.

Cupar Arts & Heritage Project (CAHP) www.cupararts.org.uk

uploaded: January 2010

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page updated 19/7/2010