This Month's Featured Art Gallery: VAST Member, Gail Cope

Gail Williamson Cope, Farmers Branch

My work has evolved into a series of mixed media paintings exploring the reduction of mark making to the simplest forms-dots, dashes and circles. Although the use of these most basic forms would imply a simple surface, in fact the marks are layered in complex ways, and the background or under-painting takes on even more importance as it interacts with the layers. An exploration of textile references resonates with my childhood and continues to have value and meaning for me today. The work is the culmination of exploration of art techniques while seeking to convey the findings of  eight decades of study, travel and life experience. I have been exploring transferring my skills to ceramics, beading, and sculpture with mostly fun results. I am also building up my lecture series topics for presentations in the north Texas area. I love art history and discovering artists and museums everywhere I travel. I find inspiration from history, travel and my art group friends which makes me go to my Happy Place (My Studio) to work on new ideas.

Gail Williamson Cope Biography

I grew up as an army brat, traveling all over the south and southwest, going to a new school every year until high school.  I was always able to entertain myself by reading and drawing. I learned to embrace change and enjoy meeting new people. I studied languages and history and art and finally decided to teach high school and incorporate all these interests. After 33 years of teaching German, French, and European History I retired and decided to take up my other interests of art and art history in a more serious way. I did not start out to get advanced degrees, but I was having a good time being a student and traveling and improving my skills and knowledge that I received an MFA in painting from Texas Woman's University and an MA in Art History from Texas Woman's University. Many of my paintings were bought by TWU and can be seen on campus in Denton. I have exhibited in the North Texas area, Germany, and the Turks and Caicos, where I owned part of an art gallery with a friend.

As a life-long educator I want to inform and enlighten the viewer, but in a playful way. However serious the subjects- which might range from intolerance, climate change, environmental degradation, ignorance, and bigotry-the work is colorful, complex, puzzling and enticing.  The artwork reflects the struggles, pain, challenges, joy and adventures of life, and show that it is colorful, wonderful, confusing and full of promise and surprises everywhere we look. 

Members' Art Galleries

Gail Cope - New Work 2025
Sadaf Munshi - Artworks
Dalynn Montgomery - Plein Air Watercolor