Gail Spaien (b. 1958, Hartford, Connecticut) is a Maine – based artist whose practice celebrates the beauty of ordinary acts and the rhythms of daily routine. Her paintings are of observed and imagined places that call attention to a tradition of craft and beauty that highlight, through their making, practices of slowness and care. Spaien’s use of decorative patterning and off-kilter perspectives invite the viewer into a conversation around concepts of home, and discrepancies between utopia and reality while celebrating a tradition of hand-making that reflects the possibility of a kinder, gentler existence.

Drawing inspiration from the landscapes, gardens, and vernacular architecture of seaside New England, Spaien’s work features the cottage as a site of contemplation, rest, and contact with nature. Her paintings blend still life with landscape, often depicting a unification between the interior and exterior of a place. The spectators of her paintings become the inhabitant of the space, arousing a feeling of familiarity, warmth, and safety.

The artist’s wide breadth of knowledge of visual arts and history informs her work in myriad ways, taking inspiration from a variety of source materials. This ranges from the animated movies of Hayao Miyazaki or Walt Disney, to the symbolism of Dutch Still Life paintings. She references 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 she did as a child, also informs her work, as well as her admiration of early American folk artists, the Pattern and Decoration movement Decorative Arts movement,Intimism and the ancient artists of Ukiyo-e.

Gail 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 now full-time in the studio. 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 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. After thirty years as faculty at the Maine College of Art and Design she is now full-time in the studio.

Spaien’s solo exhibitions include Taymour Grahne Projects, London, (2023); Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, ME; Nancy Margolis Gallery, NY; Ellen Miller Gallery, Boston, MA; Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; Group exhibitions include Taymour Grahne Projects, London; Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME; 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. OZ Art NWA, Eli Khouri Collection, Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center, NY; Fidelity Investments, MA; Portland Museum of Art, ME; University of New England, ME; University of Southern Maine, ME.