When my 3rd son was born, I wanted to capture and freeze all my feelings of love, hope and wonder. Knowing how precious and fleeting these early days are, and how fast babies grow and change, I was determined to savor each moment, hold on to each emotion as long as possible, and immortalize each memory in the best way I know: with colors and paint.

Right after my son’s birth, the pandemic hit. Life turned inwards. We retreated into our own family bubble and while everything fell apart outside, we built a haven for ourselves inside. Painting was my sanity.

In the end, I painted 50 paintings, a handful of pieces for each month of my son’s first year of life. Each painting embodies him, his ever-changing personality, how he laughed and played, learned and developed, began to crawl, to walk, to run. To babble, then talk. Things he loved, places he went, things he experienced, how I felt with him. I passionately mixed colors to weave together my memories, my dreams, our experiences, and the ever present passage of time, while also embodying the full range of my emotions over the course of the year.

One day these paintings will be a gift to him. This year they’ve been a gift to me.
—Gayle Midnight, San Francisco, California 2020-2021

These paintings were inspired by the stunning landscapes of Lake Tahoe in the winter. Tahoe in February holds a quiet magic — snow-draped pines, crystal-clear waters, and the peaceful silence that accompanies falling snowflakes.

This collection of paintings make up my summer series, representing my travels around both Southern California and Northern California, as well as summer here in San Francisco.

Summers are cool and foggy in San Francisco, leaving me constantly yearning for a little sunshine! When I would see even a sliver of sun peek through the clouds, I would rush to get outside before it disappeared back into the swirl of fog, punctuated by the infamous fog horn!

Pure Magic · California Girl at Heart · Sugar and Pixie Dust

This series captures the sun-soaked magic of Southern California — the beach culture, the sparkling carefree energy, and the childlike wonder of a place where summer feels eternal and dreams feel entirely within reach. It is a love letter to California's golden spirit, bottled in color and light.

Heavenly · Sand Harbor · D.L. Bliss · Pope Beach · Emerald Bay · Zephyr Cove

This series is a journey around the breathtaking shores of Lake Tahoe — each painting inspired by a different location, from the sparkling coves to the towering pines that frame its crystalline waters. A visual tribute to one of the most achingly beautiful lakes in the world, alive in every brushstroke.

Chasing Rainbows I · Chasing Rainbows II · Sea Wings · Spark! · Starlight Fires

This collection of paintings celebrates joy! Those simple moments in life that are filled with happiness. Moments with my kids. Seeing the world through young eyes. Hope. Love. Chasing rainbows.

The Mermaid's Ballet · Breathe · Naked in the Sunshine

This three-part series strips painting down to its most elemental forces — composition and line — letting them carry the full weight of energy, movement, and feeling. Sometimes less is everything.

This collection attempts to capture the magic of childhood. Inspired by my children and their creative play, I strove to capture the mood and magic of their imaginations.

“Skate the Tunnel”
In “Skate the Tunnel” I was inspired by my sons’ love of roller skating. I wove together the colors and forms of those first experiences skating. They have intense skates with blinking light-up rainbow wheels and iridescent finishes with hints of purple and turquoise. All of it is so nostalgic and fun, and brings back memories of skating when I was a kid!

“Fairy Dust”
There are magical fairy doors hidden throughout Golden Gate Park and a few other places around the city. My kids and I love to imagine the hidden worlds behind them. I often imagine a chamber filled with heady earthen scents, and illuminated by rays of golden sunlight in which fairy dust floats and shimmers, amongst glittering beating wings and wildflowers.

“Broken Sleep”
Painting in the middle of the night is the main way I maintain my art practice in this season of parenting, as it’s some of the only time I get to myself. All too often it means a night of very few hours of sleep, as my schedule never allows for sleeping in. In the earliest hours, broken sleep sometimes feels like there is a fogged window between waking and dreams that I can slip back and forth between.

Spring is the season of transformation, and this collection of fifteen paintings chases that feeling — the tender new growth, the shifting light, and the breathtaking, ephemeral beauty of nature coming alive again.

There's something about California light. The way it falls golden and unapologetic—on canyon walls, on ocean fog, on wildflowers blooming after the rainy season. These paintings don't try to capture California so much as feel it—the warmth that sinks into your skin, the color that lives at the edge of your eye.

Sun-bleached and saturated. Dreamlike. A golden state of mind—unhurried, open, alive with possibility.

These 3 paintings were inspired by a trip back to my hometown:

A touch of gold—a splash of rose—drops of crimson—aqua pools—charcoal vines.

The paintings in this collection include: “Santa Barbara”, “Foxen Canyon” and “Frozen Garden”.

The Crystalline Collection is an exploration of one of nature's most mesmerizing phenomena — the crystalline formations found deep within the earth and scattered across the cosmos. Color, form, and geometry converge to capture something ancient, luminous, and endlessly fascinating. Paintings in this collection: Milk Cocoon, Cascade, Steam Castles & Stalactite Heartbeat.

Iceland changed everything.

Traveling across this otherworldly island—from Reykjavík to Akureyri, along the Ring Road through Mývatn, Seyðisfjörður, and Vík—I painted over 50 watercolors on paper, work that would go on to define my approach to fluid acrylics. Working on paper instead of canvas was itself a revelation, one that opened a path to something entirely new.

The light in Iceland is filled with a luminosity that is unlike anywhere else—permeating, pure, ethereal—and it worked its way into every painting, every brushstroke, every artistic decision. This series marked a turning point in my work from which everything that followed evolved in a new direction.

These paintings capture the landscape in all its forms—landscapes traced along rivers of glowing cyan and azure, abstract and graceful all at once; flowerings inspired by botanicals and volcanic forms, tiny wildflowers and hidden berries emerging from beds of reindeer moss and volcanic rock in a stunning palette of greens, charcoals, siennas, ochres, and umbers; steamings born from the contrast of sizzling volcanic earth against freezing snow and ice, landscapes so alien you feel you've stepped onto another planet; the bubbling mud baths and bright aqua hot springs of Krafla; and the iconic Icelandic hestur—the small, sturdy horse that roams this island.

Iceland didn't just inspire me—it unexpectedly awakened something in me, and redefined my art—something I never could have predicted.