Biography

Midge Gourlay is a textile artist and teacher, trained at Glasgow School of Art and specialising in embroidered and woven textiles.

Midge has exhibited widely throughout the UK and France and works mainly to commission and for exhibitions. Her work is mainly inspired by West Highland land and seascapes, Celtic mythology and embroidery techniques. She uses techniques which include dyeing, fabric manipulation with machine embroidery, paint and handmade silk paper.

A trained teacher at the Jordanhill College of Further Education, Midge has also taught adults, students and primary school children over the years whilst working as an artist on her own work.

She is an active exhibiting member of EDGE, the Scottish Textile Art Group and is on the list of artists working for the Church of Scotland.

“The foundation of my work is embroidery and related techniques. I work mainly in silks, unspun or in fabric form. Fabrics and fibres are hand-dyed with either chemical or natural dyes. Silk fibres are felted to create grounds to work into using hand or machine stitchery and embellished with found objects, papers etc. Fabrics are manipulated to create interesting textures and patterns with the use of my embellisher machine. My recent works are fairly large, unframed wall pieces with colours and textures taken from land and seascapes of the west coast of Scotland and from the landscape of the South of France and Finland. Smaller works are usually framed. Church commissioned work has, to date, been more traditional and detailed due to the client brief, but my commission for the Old Parish Church of Hamilton was up-to-date and experimental.”
Midge Gourlay, Artist Statement

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