Gail de Cordova was born in Malta and then moved to Cornwall (UK) where she spent her childhood. Her ancestors came from Southern Spain – hence her name. She attended Exeter College of Art and Design (1979-81) where she gained a BA(Hons) in fine art. She has been painting consistently ever since and currently lives and works in Cambridge (UK). She has worked at Kettles Yard (the arts centre where Jim and Helen Ede built up a distinctive collection of modern art and which is now a department of Cambridge University) and taught art at Bellerbys College for six years. She now works as a full time artist. She has had many local exhibitions and has also shown in London, Sweden and Spain.

'My inspiration begins with the beauty of the natural world and how we connect with it at a deeper level. I start with a blank canvas or paper on the floor, deciding which way up it will go at a later stage. Slowly I build up layers of different materials, which may include acrylic paint, plaster, paper, chalks oils and pastels. I don’t have a preconceived idea of how the painting will look so that images, textures and colours just begin to form. The challenge is achieving a balance between conscious decisions and what arrives intuitively.
A constant source of inspiration are both the details of the world around me, and the much larger view. I structure the picture, often working with straight edges and rectangles, echoing the outside edges of the canvas. I'm interested in the contrasts and contradictions between illusory space and surface and texture. But what really excites me is the point at which the painting takes on a life of its own and begins to flow of its own accord'.