Gayle Matthias is a practising artist, educator and researcher.

Having exhibited nationally and internationally, Matthias has artwork in the permanent collections of the V&A, Musee de Vianne, Glazenhuis and Ebeltoft Museum of Glass amongst others.

Previously, Matthias has worked in the Gallery Education Department at the Crafts Council; she has also been an artist in residence at Bullseye Glass in the USA.   

She is Subject Leader on the BA(Hons) Crafts and Material Practice course at Plymouth College of Art. 

Prior to that, she was a Senior Lecturer on the BA(Hons) Contemporary Craft course at Falmouth University and formerly an External Examiner at De Montfort University. 

She has a BA in 3D Design: Glass and a MA in Creative Practice: Fine Art.

Matthias’ work reflects her social and cultural heritage and how heavy industry has left its hallmarks within communities, not only upon the landscape and the environment, but also on the body and the resulting deteriorating conditions that now transpire as a consequence. 

She employs a wide variety of kiln-formed glass techniques combined with mixed media to produce dramatically poignant sculptures that are constructed to resemble remnants of these past industries that also challenge our perceptions of glass.

Amongst others, she has presented a paper ‘S-O-T Body Repairs: Personal Geographies’ at Craft(ing) the Body symposium (2019), University of the Creative Arts, Farnham. ‘S-O-T Body Repairs: Narrative Pursuits’ featured in the special issue “Contemporary Glass Art: Materiality and Digital Technologies” Arts online journal, MDPI, 2019.

Previously, she undertook collaborative research with Tavs Jorgensen, investigating Rapid Tooling for glass casting moulds combined with digital technologies.

She is the co-author of papers presented at the GAS conference in Chicago 2014, ‘Making Futures’ conference in Plymouth, UK (2013), ‘Crafting the Future’, the 10th European Academy of Design (EAD), Gothenberg, Sweden (2013) and ‘Towards a New Ceramic Future’, research presentation at V&A, UK (2012).  

Gayle is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.