About
Gayle Midnight is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning artist specializing in ethereal abstract paintings that burst with color and evoke fragments of visual stories drawn from her many globe-trekking adventures. Her work has been featured in publications worldwide and exhibited in museums and galleries across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Her art can be found in private collections around the globe.
Born and raised in California, Gayle earned degrees in fine art and writing from Pepperdine University before spending half a decade living abroad. She studied fine art, art history, and Italian at the prestigious Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy, traveling extensively across Europe and immersing herself in art and culture that would profoundly influence her work.
Her wanderlust grew stronger when the Japanese government invited her to teach in Osaka, Japan. She spent several years there teaching, traveling throughout Asia, and creating and exhibiting art while also developing illustrations for top magazines, clients, and collectors worldwide.
Gayle eventually formed her own creative studio specializing in art, illustration, and design. She continued to publish and exhibit while completing graduate coursework in art education from UC Santa Barbara, going on to become an art instructor, international speaker, and published author.
Her passion for travel and art led her to found the successful travel magazine Culture Vixen, focused on art, design, culture, and food. Working with international governments and travel bureaus, she explored 6 continents, 50+ countries, and over 400 cities, travel writing and making art all along the way.
Between meeting former presidents and interviewing world-famous chefs, Gayle found herself scaling erupting volcanoes by moonlight, hiking glaciers from Europe to Patagonia with crampons and ice axe in hand, taking in the souks and riads of Morocco, and exploring islands so tiny the plane ride there required stepping on a scale to make sure the plane wouldn’t be overweight.
Some of her favorite adventures include being wrapped in giant banana leaves filled with sugar scrubs that smelled like heaven beside a waterfall in the middle of the rainforest, viewing hidden art behind the walls of famous museums, watching the sunset over the Aegean Sea, rubbing elbows in the kitchen with celebrity chefs while tasting recipes passed down from generation to generation, riding Icelandic horses across black sand beaches, and scuba diving among some of the most breathtaking coral reefs in the world.
These days, Gayle maintains an art studio in San Francisco, creating commissioned artwork and original paintings for clients and collectors. She paints every chance she gets between raising three wild little kids.
Selected Clients:
Work Featured In:
Collaborations + Pop-Ups
Press
Excerpts from the feature interview: "Sock It To Me: Cool Girl of the Month—Gayle Midnight"
“At the age of five, Gayle Midnight would paint in the studio next to her father. This early creative influence echoes across her paintings today. “My favorite subjects back then included purple unicorns with manes of fire, and underwater worlds. To this day if you look closely, fragments of those early obsessions are still present in much of my work, in updated form of course!”
International exploration has had a tremendous impact on her art and writing, keeping her invigorated and challenged. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about Gayle’s multinational quest for stimulation and fodder for her work is the variety of situations she’s found herself in while on the road.
She’s driven her car into quicksand in Iceland – “Boy does a car sink fast!” – been stranded on a Greek Island, gotten scammed into taking a fake floating market tour by a monk in Thailand, and she was picked up by German police in Munich when she got lost at Oktoberfest. Her adventuring often has been mouth-first; while gallivanting across the globe she’s consumed poisonous pufferfish, skewered salamanders, “stinky tofu,” putrefied shark, and the still-beating heart of a snake tossed in a shot of vodka in Tapei!
When she’s not traveling, eating exotic delicacies, playing her pineapple ukulele, drawing space ninjas, or practicing the martial art of Jeet Kune Do, Gayle sets out on individual artistic missions. “I’ve pushed boundaries with my creative goals,” she says. “One year I challenged myself to paint 100 paintings in under a year. I reached my goal in just ten months and have been painting up a storm ever since.”
She credits those months with spurring a ton of personal growth, as her ambitious painting schedule forced her to overcome many of her weaknesses and to explore her strengths as a painter.
Although it’s grueling, the rewards are great. “I think the biggest challenge to being a freelance artist is facing rejection on a daily basis, maintaining a healthy ego, and mustering up the courage to continue to follow an unconventional course in life,” she says. “You just have to accept the fact that not everyone is going to understand the need to put everything aside in order to dedicate yourself to creating art.”
For her tenacious traveling and artistic endeavors, we think Gayle Midnight is a Cool Girl!” —Sock It To Me: Cool Girl of the Month Feature Interview
Excerpts from the feature interview: "Sustainable Sushi: The Art of Sushi: Fish, Life, and Gayle Midnight
"The gifted and lovely Gayle Midnight is a well-known artist based in the Los Angeles area. She is supremely talented and works in an impressive array of media, including oil on canvas, illustration, and graphic design. Her work is displayed in numerous exhibitions and galleries around the world, and much of it has been snapped up by art collectors who lamentably discovered her before I did.
Gayle spent two years living in Japan, and I'm guessing that this is at least part of what has inspired her to use sushi imagery in her work. What interests me about Gayle's art is her uncanny ability to depict the connection between sushi and life.
Gayle has managed to use sushi to portray these undersea organisms as the vivacious, mysterious, beating-heart marvels that they are. Her vibrant, almost monstrous depictions of the animals "behind the sushi" strikes a chord with me. Salmon roe sport teeth, similar to those they would have developed had they been allowed to hatch and mature. A clutch of eels writhe and squirm against a nori yoke, struggling mightily to escape a hackneyed kabeyaki fate. Cold- or warm-blooded, exo- or endo-skeletal, shelled or scaled, pelagic or benthic… it makes no difference. Gayle's work ably demonstrates that all of the ocean's inhabitants merit our reverence, as does the amazingly complex ecosystem that they compose."
—Author, Speaker & Ocean Activist Casson Trenor of Sustainable Sushi (This interview refers to a series of monster sushi children’s book illustrations Gayle created.)
Awards
HOW Design Award
CASE District VII Award in Visual Identity Systems
Two-time Santa Barbara Foundation Grant Recipient
Studio Arts College International Selected Artist in Florence, Italy
Testimonials
“Gayle’s work is nothing short of pure magic. Her pieces leave me feeling lifted and with a sense of wonder. What I love the most is how they give the viewer total freedom to interpret and receive something truly beautiful.”
“Working with Gayle Midnight on story illustrations for Whole Life Times was an absolute pleasure. Gayle has the ability to take the kernel of a story idea and flesh it out in an image that not only complements, but enhances the story. A true collaborator, she was able to infuse my verbal suggestions of what the illustration might express with whimsical, imaginative ideas of her own. Her work was professional, creative and spot on.”
“Gayle is an artist with an unstoppable torrent of color emerging from her fingertips. Her paintings radiate light, inspiring delight with their translucent ephemeral impressions. Glimmering threads emerge from a color wash assembling a metaphor for life. The viewer simultaneously relaxes and is awakened. Each of Gayle’s pieces is a true gem. I have owned one of Gayle’s paintings for a year now. It hangs at the end of my hallway and every time I see it, my spirit truly brightens. It is my magical, lucky piece. Thank you, Gayle!”
“Gayle is one of the most creative and deadline savvy artists I have worked with. Given the direction, Gayle seamlessly creates an illustration that usually needs little or no redesigning. However, if changes are necessary, Gayle is quick to change gears with a positive attitude. She is every editor’s dream illustrator!”
“Something I love about all of Gayle’s work is the feeling of fluidity and freedom it exudes. When I first got one of her paintings, I had to find a spot where I’d be sure to see it each morning. The vibrant colors and the whimsical lines, shapes, and patterns cheer me up every time. The abstract painting is also a perpetual conversation piece: all of our family members keep noticing new details to appreciate!”
“Gayle is very creative and talented. She created the cover art for my first novel, Night Terrors. I am very excited about it and plan to hire her again when I publish my second novel. She understood the surreal concept I wanted to convey and explained carefully everything she was doing. She is extremely gifted and I look forward to continuing our work together.”
“I just love Gayle’s work so much so that I bought a small painting of hers. Her paintings are rich in color and texture, leading the observer to joy. Amazing work! You get better and better every year.”
“Gayle is a unique and innovative artist whose creativity moves the hearts of those who view her work.”