Natalie Gale

The focus of my practice is abstract painting, dealing with the materiality of paint and process. It's influenced by fashion trends: colour, surface pattern/print, texture, and collection concepts are interwoven with formal painterly concerns as well as histories. My work is often small and overloaded expanding the frontal picture plane into the viewers’ immediate space, thus existing in the realm of Painting in the Expanded Field.

I've curated and co-organised various exhibitions and events such as the touring show Malerei: Painting as Object, The Hearing Trumpet West Dean College, Chichester, including artists such as Phylida Barlow, Alexis Harding, and Salvador Dali. Most recently, I've organised a Common Room event, ‘IN PART’, an initiative of the Foundation Diploma/Design and Art and Design Extended course to collaborate with artist and designer, David Cooper (a former Head of Menswear for Alexander McQueen). This took the form of a collaborative daylong workshop and a fashion-based exhibition in the National Glass Centre’s Project Space.

I've worked in arts education for 15 years, in further, academic, and gallery and museum contexts. I've ran The National Saturday Art Club (The Sorrell Foundation) at the National Glass Centre, as well as teaching in a number of academic institutions nationally. I embed the University of Sunderland’s ‘student-centric’ ethos within my teaching practice and I believe that it's of great importance for creative students to develop their own individual artistic/creative voice.

In conjunction with this, I take great interest in building students’ critical and theoretical skills, ensuring they're confident to discuss their practice professionally within and outside of a university context. In addition, I regularly organise professional opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate students that have resulted in employment in all cases.