Gabrielle Hoad

• About
• Artworks
  • Delicate Instruments
  • Clouded Border
  • Ghost Moth
  • The whistle draws attention
    to the signal
  • Salt-cat (keeps them at home)
  • Turn (the) leaves
  • Fatal exchanges
  • pigeon steps
  • lie lie lie
  • Street Rockery
  • A house of leaves
  • Hide
  • The Luminous Envelope
  • Feed
  • Columbarium (all that remains)
  • The further away they are
  • The Geometry of Air
  • Interloper
  • Listen to Easterbrooks
  • The Great British Banana
  • Mutter Erde
  • Is and Was
  • Observatory
  • River Bovey Walk
  • Space as defined by two
    separate systems
  • The spaces where things
    have been
  • I draw them. They draw me.
  • What the world becomes
• Projects
  • Clouded Border
  • Read (to) the trees
  • The Buffer Zone
  • Preston Street Union
  • LEAN
  • Solid Air
  • Foreign Soil
  • HEIST
  • Stowage
  • Exeter Studios Project
• Moving Image
  • Two-handed timekeeper
  • Orbit
  • the predecessor to your prayer
  • Crosstalk
  • Bound
• Writing
• Shop
• Contact

Artist and writer who lives and works in Exeter, Devon, UK.

With a practice that is highly responsive to site and context, Gabrielle Hoad makes work that includes live, ephemeral elements as well as more lasting documentary traces such as photographs, films, publications and objects. Her interests include language, codes, signalling and the use of what John Berger calls 'technical clairvoyance' (such as night vision and GPS tracking) to extend normal human perception. In 2024, she was awarded an Arts Council DYCP Award to develop these ideas through moving image.

Collaboration is central to her practice. She has worked with nature reserves, country estates and woodlands, as well as scientists, mathematicians, historians, foresters, farmers, botanists, birds, trees and a glider pilot.

Since 2016 she has worked extensively with Megan Calver. Joint projects include: Delicate Instruments (2023), an exploration of the paranormal experiments of A H Reeves, supported by a CAMP Research Residency; Clouded Border (2021-2022), a site-responsive project focused on Durlston Country Park in Dorset and its role in the development of radio communications; Salt-cat (keeps them at home) (2020), a site-based installation for Open-Up, Hestercombe Gardens, Somerset; pigeon steps (2019), a participatory provocation and publication for Walking's New Movements, University of Plymouth; Turn (the) leaves (2018), a public participatory event and 8-channel sound installation for East Devon AONB and Thelma Hulbert Gallery, Honiton; LEAN (2018) commissioned for the Od Arts Festival Somerset; and The Buffer Zone (2016), a shared inquiry (with Susie David) at Dawlish Warren into human/nonhuman dialogue, supported by a bursary from a-n The Artist Information Company.

Gabrielle has a strong interest in the construction of knowledge, in particular the notion of the scientific model. As an ESI/RANE Creative Affiliate (2014-15), she worked with Dr Jonathan Bennie of Exeter University's Environment & Sustainability Institute on Foreign Soil, modelling the microclimate of a pasture in southwest England. In 2013-14, funded by Arts Council England, she worked with Dr Steven Portugal of the Royal Veterinary College's Structure & Motion Lab on Solid Air, a project that brought together specialised data loggers with 3D printing technology to visualise bird flight paths.

Download PDF of full CV

All images and text © Gabrielle Hoad unless otherwise stated. Last updated July 2024.