Brandy Gale

BRANDY GALE is a plein air landscape painter and photographer. After having painted in a studio for years, in 2001 she was encouraged to get outside by one of her mentors, J. Baldini. Brandy fell in love with painting in nature with all its challenging distractions. She also enjoys working outdoors because of her congenital full-spectrum synesthesia, which means that all five of her senses are crossed.

Due to her synesthesia, Brandy tastes colors when she hears sound, or she might feel a texture from a visual experience. So when she’s outside painting from life instead of a photo, she may smell what she sees, then another sense is triggered, then another, and she puts all of that into the painting.  If the mountain seems really red, she paints it red. The synesthesia informs her painting a great deal, and informs her photography as well. As she says, if she has a synesthetic response to the subject, she makes a photo or a painting and it makes all the difference!

Most of her paintings are done along the intertidal areas of Fiji, Hawaii and California, and she is currently focusing her underwater photographic images on tide pool critters of Monterey Bay.

Brandy grew up “all over the planet, all over the place.” As a military brat, she was born in Marville, France, but grew up in Belgium, Germany, the US and Canada, as well as France.

Brandy was born with synesthesia. It’s the only world she’s ever known, but the first week of school, the teachers called her parents and said there’s something really weird about your kid.

Brandy lived in Canada off and on most of her life and had been settled on a charming island in Lake Ontario, Ca called Quinte Island, also known as Prince Edward County. She now lives happily in Bonny Doon, CA with her partner, and a spectacular view of Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean.