Our Faculty
Sarah Margaret gibson
Creative Director, Principal Studio Instructor
Sarah Margaret Gibson (b. 1988) is from Cincinnati, OH.
Sarah Margaret is a world-renowned master in contemporary realist painting. She specialises in portraiture, bird and floral paintings, and in still lifes. Characterized by a rich tenebrism, Gibson’s work dramatically juxtaposes light against shadow. She believes that light, and all of its symbolic qualities, are most poetic when contrasted against dark. Through her drawings and paintings, Gibson opens up a dialogue with nature, responding to what she finds beautiful and endeavoring to communicate this through the medium of oil paint.
Gibson received her formal training in drawing and painting in Florence, Italy. She studied at the Angel Academy of Art from 2008-2010, and then completed the full three-year program at The Florence Academy of Art, from which she graduated in 2013 and where she subsequently taught as a Principal Instructor in their Intermediate Drawing and Painting Programme.
In 2015 Sarah Margaret moved to the west coast of Scotland alongside her husband and fellow artist, Lee Craigmile. Together they cofounded the Glasgow Academy of Fine Art in 2019, a formal training academy at which she taught traditional methods of representational drawing and painting to aspiring professional artists. In 2024, Gibson and Craigmile decided to transition the Academy, moving the school to Lee’s hometown on the west coast and combining it with their personal painting studio to create Ayrshire Atelier of Fine Art. Gibson acts as Creative Director and Principal Instructor of Studio Workshops at the atelier and she splits her time between painting for galleries and commissions, teaching, and raising her young son.
Gibson's work is shown throughout the U.S., U.K. and Europe and can be found in the New Britain Museum of American Art, The New Salem Museum of Art, and in numerous private collections. She is represented by Arcadia Contemporary in Soho, NYC.
website: Www.SarahMargaretGibson.com
Lee Craigmile
Managing Director, Principal Lanscape Instructor
Lee Craigmile (b.1985) is from Largs, Scotland.
Lee Craigmile is a contemporary realist oil painter, specialising in paintings of the Scottish landscape and of Scottish whiskies. Growing up in a stunning coastal town in Ayrshire, Lee developed his interest in the epic Scottish landscape and his passion for painting at an early age.
From 2005 to 2012 Craigmile studied drawing and painting at the Glasgow School of Art. He then moved to Florence, Italy in 2012 to receive his formal education in traditional drawing and painting at the prestigious Florence Academy of Art, where he met his wife, Sarah Margaret. Lee graduated from the Florence Academy in June of 2015, after which he returned to the west coast of Scotland with Sarah.
In 2019 Lee and Sarah founded the Glasgow Academy of Fine Art, which they ran for five years. In 2024, the couple decided to reinvent the school, moving it to Lee’s hometown of Largs and combining it with their personal painting studio to create Ayrshire Atelier of Fine Art.
Lee currently splits his time between working on commissions, painting for galleries, and teaching pleinair painting workshops all across Scotland with the Atelier. He hopes to inspire others—just as he himself was inspired as a youth—to realise the truth that one can achieve exceptional works of art through the mastery of traditional techniques and by looking to the beauty of nature and the great artists of the past.
Lee’s work has been exhibited widely throughout the U.K., Europe, and The U.S. and can be found in numerous private collections.
