Gail Hoban
Gail Hoban is a visual artist based in Quendon, near Saffron Walden in north Essex. She works in ballpoint pen, combined with acrylic paint and salt, and draws the lichen, mosses and wild plants of the countryside around her home.
Working at the edges of privately owned land and along public footpaths, she studies how people are guided towards nature and away from it by manmade signs, and how landowners communicate a boundary. Several of the drawings take their titles from that signage: Private Land, Footway Closed, Private No Right of Way.
A previous career in graphic design and branding lies behind this, leaving her with a love of typography and an interest in the power of communication. Alongside the drawing she runs creative workshops. She is a member of the Cambridge Drawing Society. In March 2026 she showed a solo exhibition at Haddenham Arts Centre, and exhibited in the Society of Graphic Fine Arts Open at the Mall Galleries, London.
Artist Statement
I am addicted to the sensation of drawing nature using a ballpoint pen. I draw trees, native wild plants, fungi, manmade signs and structures. I regularly walk along the same routes and follow details in the countryside near my home, but also travel to visit my family in London, seeing a very different connection to nature in the city. My work is softly ranty, drawing attention to the manmade obstacles that prevent people from enjoying and connecting with nature.
I am frustrated by the limited and controlled access to land and nature. I am conscious how fragile access to nature is, with many local footpaths being over farmland and through private woodlands. My intricate pieces aim to gently draw viewers in to campaign for the issue beneath. I am also fascinated by the resilience of nature occurring in unexpected places, alongside the rail network, or in urban plots, screening and protecting brutal manmade structures.