Understanding Your Experience with Painter Gail Spaien

Gail Spaien (b. 1958, Hartford, Connecticut) is an American artist and educator based in Maine. Her studio practice centers around the idea that a painting is a site of connection; an object that transmits emotion from one person to another. She is of a lineage of artists who think craft and beauty shape and build a more relational world. Spaien has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, including the Ucross Foundation (2024), Varda Artist Residency Program, Djerassi Foundation Resident Artists Program, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has received grant funding from the Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Foundation, the Maine Arts Commission, and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions, including Taymour Grahne Projects, Dubai, UAE(2025); Mrs. Gallery, NY (2025); Nancy Margolis Gallery, NY; Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK; Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME; Ellen Miller Gallery, Boston, MA; and Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME. Group exhibitions include Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Taymour Grahne Projects, London, UK; Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME; 1969 Gallery, NY; studio e, Seattle, WA; Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Provincetown, MA; University of New Hampshire Museum, Durham, NH; Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, ME; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME; and the DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, MA. Spaien received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and BFA from the University of Southern Maine. After thirty years as faculty at the Maine College of Art and Design, she is full-time in the studio. "Inspired by my geographic location and the landscape that surrounds me, the images in my paintings are of observed and imagined places where one can be in relationship with others, the world, and the self. They celebrate the beauty of everyday acts and the quiet rhythms of daily life. They are compact reductions of lived experiences and permeable arenas of contemplation. The way I make my work is a performance of slowness. Created through repetitive handcraft, marked by decorative patterning, flattened space, and subtly skewed perspectives, my paintings reflect the intimacy of their making. Blending still life with landscape, often depicting a unification between the interior and exterior, spectators of my paintings become inhabitants of a world in slower motion. Composing an idealized counterpoint, I suggest that slowness and attention to the rhythms of an ordinary day is a form of quiet resistance and renewal. My source material ranges from the animated movies of Hayao Miyazaki and Walt Disney to the symbolism of Dutch Still Life paintings. I reference quilts, samplers, mourning paintings, Japanese embroidery, early American wooden furniture, wooden boats, and the architecture of simple cottages. The meditative and precise quality of paint-by-numbers, which I did as a child, also informs my work, as well as my admiration of early American folk artists, the Pattern and Decoration movement, Intimism and the ancient artists of Ukiyo-e. My paintings are places, and I approach them as such. As a painter, I turn my back on the external world and enter the world of the painting. I hope a viewer might do that too. When people say, "I want to go there," I feel I have hit the mark in some way." LINKS: gailspaien.com @gailspaien Artist Shout out: A shout out to my colleagues who are showing with Taymour Grahne Projects: Amy Lincoln @amyplincoln Matthew F. Fisher @matthewffisher Sarah Mceneaney @sarahmcinerney Samira Abbassy @samira_abasy Katia Kamali @kamelikatia Faycal Baghriche And a VERY small few of my Maine colleagues: Philip Brou Honour Mack @honourmack Tessa Greene O'Brien @tessagreeneobrien Grace Hager @gracemakes Hilary Irons @h.irons.h Brett Bigby @brettbigby Rose Marasco @rosemarasco I Like Your Work Links: Thank you to our sponsor, Sunlight Tax. Right now, listeners of I Like Your Work can get this free artists' tax deduction guide by going to sunlighttax.com/ilikeyourworkguide Thank you to our Sponsor, the 2026 Canopy Program: Join an info session with Founder and Executive Director Catherine Haggarty and apply by January 14th at thecanopyprogram.com Pre-order our catalog: Have a question you want Erika to discuss in a mini episode? Email it to ilikeyourworkpodcast@gmail.com with the subject "mini eps" Apply to the Chautauqua School of Art Residency Program: art.chq.org Join Erika in Italy at Umbria Contemporary Arts this Summer: Join the Works Membership! Watch our Youtube channel: Submit Your Work Check out our Catalogs! Exhibitions Studio Visit Artist Interviews I Like Your Work Podcast Say "hi" on Instagram

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Understanding Your Experience with Painter Gail Spaien is an episode from I Like Your Work by Erika b Hess.

This episode is 48:38 long.

This episode was published on Nov 21, 2025.

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