Gale Suver Spotlight
Gale Suver
Written by Grace Lukens, February 2026
Gale Suver has always been an artist.
As a young girl, Suver always knew she had a passion for art. A grade school mural– Christmas theme- where Gale drew the Little Drummer Boy, led to an impressed teacher, a phone call home, and a childhood rich with art. Fondly, she recalls her mother helping her submit art to the Ohio State Fair often as she grew up.
Art eventually took a backseat for Suver to have a long, rewarding career as a Medical Assistant and a mother to her four daughters. Then, after her retirement around 11 years ago, she finally had the opportunity to pursue something she had always wanted to: art.
Suver took classes at Columbus’ Cultural Arts Center, where she was able to hone her art skills and meet other artists from the community. And these classes allowed her to take her passion for art and turn it into something magical.
“Roaming Wild”
Much of Suver’s art features natural landscapes, an inspiration she says has been with her since childhood. “All my vacations were state parks in Kentucky or here in Columbus. I love places like Hocking Hills–the beautiful rock formations just amaze me. And between the texture and the feel and the fact that they've been there for so long and seen so much, that just brings something out of me.”
Most of her art focuses on the beauty of landscapes, nature, and the world around us. Her desire to paint landscapes actually comes from wanting to connect people with nature and their emotions.
“I just think it gives you a good feeling to see how people interact with each other. I even find that with my landscapes where there are no people, it's very important to me to do something in that composition, to draw people in and give them some kind of emotion.” The presence and representation of emotion is crucial to Suver’s work.
Emotions flow through Suver when she paints. Taking them, “putting [them] in paint, and having them flow through [her] body in color and movement” allows Gale to express her thoughts better than writing or speaking ever could.
“Bella Italia”
Feelings, both emotional and tactile, come into play with Suver’s spectacular works of art. Viewers can feel the draw of nature. Often, the feeling is so visceral that people want to reach out and touch the rich textures her paintings boast.
Tackling the textural aspect of nature is something that Suver takes a unique approach to: the use of a palette knife. Using the knife, she is able to create 3-D artworks on a 2-D canvas– a technique she learned at the Cultural Arts Center. The process is “like playing in butter,” and the palette knife helps Suver build up the landscapes layer by layer. Eventually, the layers build up to become the masterpieces you see, full of color and rich with textures.
These landscapes can be anything from rock formations to sunsets to waves along a shore. Each new landscape brings a new opportunity to engage with nature, with texture, and with art.
“Realization”
Suver’s joy for creating landscapes even leads her to do some of the painting outside. “I love doing [art] outside. You’re really in the elements! You get to know whether the painting is going to work out or not.”
“But I’m a fair weather fan of that– not if it’s too hot or cold!” she laughs.
Besides the enjoyment she receives from engaging with art and interacting with other artists, Suver says art is particularly important to her because she knows it is a “God given talent.”
“It doesn't mean I'm Van Gogh or anything,” she says, “but I got my talent from my father, and I'm proud of myself because I'm so proud of him. I'm proud that I am able to carry it on, because I feel like if I was given this, I should do something with it.”
From March to April 2026, Suver will have a solo gallery show titled “Lights Passage”. Hosted at Gallery 22 in Delaware, the show will feature a series of 15-20 landscape art that she has been carefully crafting. This will be Suver’s first feature exhibition, and she enthuses– “I’m very excited about it!”
“Blue Mist”
Even when preparing for a solo show, Suver is emphatic about the importance of community for arts in Central Ohio. “There's a lot of artists in Central Ohio, in Ohio altogether, but I look at them as people I can learn from. And most of them are so willing to share ideas, venues, things I should be doing, and so it's been a really good experience.”
Ultimately, Suver brings her passion for creation to her art– and it always shows. You’re likely to find her creating art in her studio, enjoying the inspiration that nature has to offer, and carving out the path of her talent, palette knife in hand.