GAIL TURPIN

AWARDS

J&W Gordon Smith Trust prize – 2022.

Purcell paper prize – 2022.

Golden Hare books award – 2024

STATEMENT

I’m an artist, maker and designer based in Edinburgh. My studio is at Patriothall Studios, a former industrial building in the heart of Stockbridge.

I’ve spent my life looking at colour, texture, composition and use of space. For me the line between art and design is very blurred.

Since early childhood, drawing and making things (working with textiles, making clothes, sewing and knitting) have been an almost daily activity.

I studied graphic design at Edinburgh College of Art and my career in design has taken me to London, Amsterdam and back to Edinburgh. As a designer, and now as an artist, drawing continues to be a core part of my process.

In all areas of my practice, I’ve come to work intuitively – whether I’m making a monoprint collage, designing a textile, making a functional object, working with type or creating an image.

Observation of nature is often my starting point. In terms of materials, I work with what I have around me: found pieces of wood, fabric and yarn from my stash, charcoal, pencils, acrylic, ink, oil bar.

I particularly like the way that Anni Albers puts it:

“Being creative is not so much the desire to do something as listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials”.

I enjoy the variety of working in mixed media and with textiles.

The way that thread and yarn can make a fine line or a robust woven material; the way that printing with ink isn’t perfect; painting on paper, wood or fabric; experimenting with pattern structures in woven textiles. The happy accidents that present themselves are all part of the process.

I find it hard to articulate what I do. I am very interested in the concept of wabi-sabi, which of course is also extremely difficult to put into words. But the best stab at it would be: the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.

I hope that my enjoyment and close observation of the ordinary – yet complex or imperfect – objects found in our immediate environment are passed on to the viewer.

To see my work visit https://www.gailturpin.art/