Gala Hills (b. 2001) is an artist whose primary mediums include painting, mask making and installation. Being brought up by Dartmoor, Devon, her practice brings an alternative, rural and imaginative ethos into a contemporary urban world. Gala graduated from her BfA at The Ruskin School of Art in 2023 and completed an MfA at The Slade School of Art in 2025. Her practice utilises a combination of academic and automatic approaches, drawing from a pedagogy of alternative feminist history and folk knowledge and reimagining through impulsive, dream-like creativity. As an autistic home-educated child, innate curiosity and inquisitiveness were priorities, characteristics that still motivate her work. 

With ambitions to highlight behaviour and instinct, Gala’s work often features animals. Coming from rural origins, the symbology and behaviours of animals and humans are treated with equal weight, dispelling social divisions between beast and human. Her Slade degree show centered animal-human mythology, and directly referenced texts such as the Mabinogion and Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Gala’s work has been shown with various arts institutions including Saatchi Gallery, Cass Arts, Soho Revue and a solo show at the Bomb Factory. Her work continues to evolve and interrogate, as well as enjoy, the medium and formats of painting. 

selected CV

• Komuna Collective - Debut at Plush Oxford February 2022
• May Morning, masked celebration at dawn with BBC Radio Oxford interview Oxford May 2022 
• Ruskin School of Art BfA degree show, University of Oxford June 2023
• True Fiction - group exhibition at JGM Gallery December 2024 - February 2025
• Komuna Collective Album launch - Theatreship London January 2025
• Slade School of Art MA/MFA Degree show June 2025
• StoryTelling - Solo Exhibition at the Bomb Factory Holborn July - August 2025
• SPACE x Art Schools Studio Awards 2025
• Private View, Oil on Canvas exhibition and magazine launch, Shreeji Newsagents October 2025
• Cass Arts Painting prize (Student Award Shortlist) Copeland Gallery October - November 2025
• Between Beasts and Stones - Solo exhibition at Perse London November - December 2025
• Lull’d in These Flowers - group show at Soho Revue London 2026
• Story Painters, Picture Writers - group show at Kendrew Barn Gallery Oxford January - February 2026
• Gesture and Being - group show at Saatchi Gallery February - March 2026