Gail Alger is a multi media painter who is inspired by the color and detail of the world around her. Gail’s watercolor paintings often depict close up images of intricately detailed flowers, while her acrylics capture the joyful expressions found in animals, and the play of light in the celebration of beverages in glass.

Painting full time since 2008, Gail enjoys analyzing miniature scenes in nature. With her astute attention to detail, bigger landscapes can be too vast an undertaking. “I want to paint every crack in every rock,” she explains. Nature’s smaller communities offer her the chance to explore almost indiscernible details, while staying true to her focus on the object at hand.

Gail’s self-professed obsession with detail gives her paintings a depth that can be mesmerizing when observing her work. Her use of shadows draws the eye in, as if peering inside the secret world of a small flower, investigating the folds and wrinkles of its delicate petals. Gail’s paintings study the fragility of nature, sharing these tiny moments with the onlooker. Because of this careful study, her work often lends a feeling of intimacy.

Gail has always been creative, experimenting with soft sculptures and woodworking before she found her current medium in watercolor painting. In 2015, she earned a Richard Stephens award from the Utah Watercolor Society, in recognition for her painting “Iris with a Touch of Yellow.” But for Gail, painting is therapeutic, and she finds that she can easily paint for hours on end without noticing the time gone by.