Isabella Flores
Amiria Gale is a New Zealand artist and teacher, best known for her semi-abstract shell paintings. Gale's work explores ideas about memory, stories, and truth, and plays with perception, blindness, and the interplay of organic form. Her paintings often depict shells tumbling within the ocean, with landscapes visible through them. Gale's artistic process involves arranging objects and photographing them to replicate the image onto arches of rough watercolour paper, before painting with acrylics and mixed media. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across New Zealand and has been featured on television sets, book covers, and website illustrations.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Style | Semi-abstract |
| Subject matter | Shells, landscapes, waves |
| Media | Acrylic paint, mixed media, watercolour paper, tissue paper, textured paper, cardboard, found elements, impasto medium, gesso, PVA glue, string, modelling compound, gel medium, artist acrylic paint, MDF board |
| Themes | Memory, stories, truth, perception, blindness |
| Inspiration | The forms of the subject matter, especially broken, worn, and incomplete shells |
| Techniques | Use of clean edges with masking tape, building up layers with glue, priming with gesso |
| Teaching | Gale has taught Art & Design and been a Curriculum Coordinator in Auckland schools. She founded the website Student Art Guide to help high school art students and teachers. |
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What You'll Learn
Amiria Gale's shell paintings
Amiria Gale is a New Zealand artist and teacher, best known for her shell paintings. Gale's shell paintings are semi-abstract acrylic and mixed media works that explore the interplay between organic forms—the boundaries between shells, land, sea, and sky. Gale's paintings play with ideas of memory, stories, and truth, and the ways in which these concepts are perceived and interpreted.
Gale's shell paintings often depict a shell tumbling within the ocean, with landscapes visible through the shell. The artist uses layers of paint to create a sense of depth and movement, with the water painted using translucent layers of gel medium and acrylic paint. The lower sections of the shells in her paintings are often textured, created using materials such as string, textured paper, modelling compound, and gesso.
Gale's shell paintings break down the barriers between land, shell, and sky, with water spilling across the sand and landscapes visible through the shells. The compositions are carefully sketched out, with abstracted forms pencilled in before the addition of paint. The artist's process often involves burying the form with paint and then uncovering it, playing with the idea of fragments and broken shells.
Gale's shell paintings explore personal memories and sensations, such as holding your breath, exploding through the surface of the water, and the splintering of sunlight and salt in your eyes. The paintings evoke the feeling of being tumbled by waves and the distorted glimpses of the shore that are captured in these moments.
Gale's shell paintings have been exhibited in New Zealand galleries and are held in private collections within New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland. Her work has also been featured on television sets and book covers, and she has published a book showcasing her artwork and high school sketchbooks.
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Exploration of memory, stories, and truth
Amiria Gale is a New Zealand artist and teacher, best known for her paintings of shells. Her artwork explores ideas of memory, stories, and truth, often through semi-abstract depictions of shells and the interplay between organic forms—the boundaries between the shell, land, sea, and sky.
Gale's paintings capture memories of diving deep and holding one's breath, the urgency of breaking through the surface for air, and the sensory experience of saltwater and sunlight. These themes are reflected in her use of materials, such as textured paper and modelling compound, to create a sense of depth and texture in her shell paintings.
Gale's exploration of memory and stories is evident in her creative process. She arranges objects and photographs them to capture a specific composition, playing with perception and the idea of a "veil across our eyes." Her paintings often depict shells in various states of wear, with pockmarks and faded lines, perhaps alluding to the passage of time and the stories these shells could tell.
The interplay between abstraction and realism in Gale's work allows her to blur the lines between memory and reality. By painting in a semi-abstract style, she can convey the extraordinary qualities of ordinary subjects, such as shells. This approach invites viewers to consider their perceptions and the truth behind what they see, perhaps questioning whether their memories and stories align with reality.
Gale's shell paintings have been exhibited in various New Zealand galleries and featured on television sets. Her artwork has also been commissioned for book covers and website illustrations, demonstrating the broad appeal and impact of her exploration of memory, stories, and truth through her unique artistic lens.
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Interplay of organic forms
Amiria Gale is a New Zealand artist and teacher, best known for her shell paintings. Her paintings explore the interplay of organic forms, blurring the boundaries between the shell, land, sea, and sky. Gale's work often depicts a semi-abstract shell within the ocean, with a landscape visible through it. This concept of interplay is further enhanced by her use of mixed media, incorporating elements such as textured paper, modelling compound, and acrylic paint.
Gale's shell paintings are inspired by her childhood experiences of playing in sand dunes and swimming in the ocean. Her artistic process involves arranging objects and photographing them to capture the desired composition. She then replicates this composition onto her chosen medium, such as arches rough watercolour paper or wooden artist boards. Her paintings often start with layers of PVA glue and tissue paper, building up texture with cardboard and other found objects.
The interplay of organic forms in Gale's work extends beyond the visual representation of shells and their surroundings. Her paintings explore ideas of memory, stories, and truth. The shells become a vehicle for examining perception and the ways in which our understanding of reality can be obscured or revealed. This exploration of the interplay between the physical and the conceptual is a defining characteristic of Gale's artistic style.
Gale's use of semi-abstract elements allows her to capture the essence of ordinary objects, such as shells, and make visible their extraordinary qualities. By combining abstraction with realism, she invites viewers to consider the interplay between the familiar and the unknown, the tangible and the ephemeral. This interplay of forms and ideas creates a sense of depth and complexity in her artwork.
The artist's choice of media and techniques further enhances the concept of interplay. The use of textured paper adds a tactile dimension to the visual interplay, inviting viewers to consider the contrast between the smooth surface of a shell and the roughness of sand or the ocean's currents. Gale's paintings, therefore, engage multiple senses and encourage a deeper exploration of the relationship between the organic forms she depicts.
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Techniques, mediums, and materials
Amiria Gale is a New Zealand artist and teacher, best known for her paintings of shells. Her paintings are semi-abstract, with a mixture of abstract and realistic elements. Gale takes inspiration from the forms of her subject matter, often shells, landscapes, or waves.
Gale's paintings are acrylic on paper or wooden artist boards. She uses PVA glue to build up layers of tissue paper, textured paper, cardboard, and other found elements. She then uses layers of acrylic paint, employing masking tape to achieve clean edges. She also uses impasto medium to build up sections of the work, then seals the whole surface with gesso to make it ready to paint.
Gale's shell paintings are created using mixed media, including string, textured paper, modelling compound, and acrylic on framed MDF board. The lower stripy section of the shell is often covered with bumpy, textured handmade paper. A layer of gesso is applied to prime the work before painting with Atelier acrylic. The water is painted using many translucent layers, with gel medium and Atelier artist acrylic paint.
Gale's paintings are carefully composed and planned. She arranges objects until the desired effect is achieved, photographing the arrangement, and then replicating the image onto arches rough watercolour paper. She then begins painting, making adjustments according to her vision for the piece.
Gale's work is technically considered 'contemporary' art. Her paintings have been exhibited in New Zealand galleries and are held in private collections in New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland.
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Influences and inspiration
Amiria Gale is a New Zealand artist and teacher, best known for her paintings of shells. She grew up in Tolga Bay on New Zealand's East Coast, where she spent a lot of time outdoors, playing in the sand dunes and swimming in the ocean. Gale's paintings have been exhibited at several New Zealand galleries, including the Parnell Art Gallery, Monterey Art Gallery (Howick), and Art by the Sea (Devonport). Her work has also been featured on television and in book covers and website illustrations.
Gale's paintings are often semi-abstract, combining abstract and realistic elements. She is inspired by the forms of her subject matter, which frequently includes shells, landscapes, and waves. She is particularly drawn to broken, worn, and incomplete shells, finding inspiration in the pockmarks and lines created by bugs. Her paintings explore ideas about memory, stories, and truth, as well as perception, blindness, and the interplay between organic forms such as the boundary between shell, land, sea, and sky.
Gale's creative process typically begins with arranging objects until she achieves the desired effect. She then photographs the arrangement and replicates the image onto arches of rough watercolour paper before starting to paint, making adjustments as she works towards her artistic vision.
Gale admires the work of artists such as John Walsh, Zaha Hadid, Don Binney, Jill Perrott, and Jim Dine. Her work is influenced by her background in architecture, and she often uses wooden artist boards and layers of tissue paper, textured paper, cardboard, and other found elements in her paintings. She prepares the surface with PVA glue and builds up certain sections with an impasto medium before sealing it with gesso. She then applies layers of acrylic paint, using masking tape to create clean edges.
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Frequently asked questions
Amiria Gale is a New Zealand artist and teacher, best known for her shell paintings.
Amiria Gale's shell paintings play with ideas about memory, stories, and truth. They explore perception, blindness, and the interplay of organic form, specifically the boundary between the shell, land, sea, and sky.
Amiria Gale takes inspiration from the forms of the subject matter she paints, often shells, landscapes, or waves. She is particularly inspired by broken, worn, and incomplete shells.
Amiria Gale uses a variety of materials and techniques in her paintings. She often paints on wooden artist boards and uses PVA glue to build up layers of tissue paper, textured paper, cardboard, and other found elements. She uses impasto medium to build up sections of the work and seals the surface with gesso before painting with Atelier acrylic. She also incorporates gel medium and masking tape to achieve clean edges.
