Gail Theis
Gail Theis was born on the Island of Grenada in the West Indies of mixed parentage. Raised with both Caribbean and British heritage, she spent her early years traveling with her family. Her highlight of living in the Caribbean and the Bahamas and later, England, New York and Africa was meeting and befriending people of different backgrounds.
On finishing school in the U.K., she attended Parsons School of Design in New York before returning to London. There she worked for a number of years in the design team at Christies the auctioneers. Gail still lives and works in London.
Gail studied the atelier method at The London Fine Art Studios before taking a diploma course in Portraiture at Heatherley’s School of Art. She began making quilts on the MFA at Wimbledon College of Art, from where she has recently graduated.
Gail has a dual practice: painting and quilting.
About her practice, Theis shares, “I am a figurative painter working in oil and a quilt maker. Quilts add a second dimension to my practice. Associated with home and comfort they suggest a strong link to the past."
I explore intention, heredity and chance, the many layers that give someone their unique identity. Our journey through life, our family, friends, where we travel to and where we come from. I scrutinise our humanity and the stratum of conscious and subconscious memory. I investigate the elements of the life that we expect to live and those experiences that happen to us by chance. In my work I am conscious of liminal space, when we find ourselves between what was and what is to come of transition and the unknown.”