Short Bio
Synesthete artist & bon vivant. Lover of drawing and painting.
Statement
Creating art is a very physical, sensory process for me, and I experience that best when working in the field, on location, in the landscape. I have spent years constantly painting on location -- forests, seascapes, falling snow, and the odd mountain. As a person with raging synaesthesia, to capture the essence of a place is something I feel best done in person, from life, with the wind and sound and tastes and smells whirling around you. There is power, joy and physical challenge in painting outdoors alla prima. The extremes of climate, oneness with the environment, and the sociable aspects of this method of making art appeal to me greatly. Though technically Plein Air, using my synesthesia to guide my mark-making, colour selections, and iconography allows me to express deeper concepts in my work.
Biography
Brandy Gale is a contemporary artist who specializes in intertidal photography and plein air painting. Her current subject matter includes various intertidal areas along the West Coast of North America, the Hawaiian Islands, and the South Pacific. Gale's work is informed greatly by her profound, full-spectrum synaesthesia. She experiences an involuntary joining or crossing of the senses - between ALL the senses: hearing, vision, taste, touch, smell and movement. Gale states, “Growing up with this gift, I thought everyone had it. But it turns out that it is not so common, and it took the school psychologist to figure out why the letter “A” was always yellow to me, or why the fresh cut grass on the way to school triggered a melody in my head, or why I thought certain shapes had personalities, or why a sunset always smelled like vanilla cookies.”
Gale prefers to paint on location rather than from photographs. By exploring the fascinating sensory panorama of each locale in person, she attempts to capture, select, and transmit these personal synesthetic experiences into her paintings. “I recently learned that there are 54 kinds of synesthetic sense crossover variables. And I have them all! So that kind of makes me a sort of poster girl for synesthesia. Like many synesthetes, I can use my sensory crossovers to assist me when I am creating. If a mountain peak seems red, I will paint it so. If the sounds of the wind in the trees are golden flashes, or the calls of a bird are blue dashes, I will add this to my landscape in progress.”
