Excerpt from The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel:

Madge Gill (1882-1961) began her hypnotic drawings and embroideries after experiencing astonishing visions. As haunting as they are mesmerising (she felt her work was guided by her spirit, “Myrninerest,” each work leaves me captivated, musing over who this figure (or figures) is, how it came to be, and waht visions Gill experienced to feel such compulsion to create it.

Born illegitimately in Walthamstow, London, Gill was raised in an orphanage and later forcibly sent to Canada to work as a labourer. On her return to the UK,, she took work as a nurse at Whipps Cross Hospital but continued to face hardships. Suffering from life-threatening illnesses, the loss of an eye and a whole set of teeth, Gill gave birth to a stillborn child, then lost a son to the Spanish flu epidemic.

In March 1920, though, her life suddenly changed. Controlled by higher powers, in a ‘trance-like state’, Gill began embroidering and producing ink drawings at aggressive speed. Later admitted to hospital where she was put under the care of Mr Helen Boyle, a progressive doctor who encouraged her automatic drawings and writings, Gill’s artistic practice thrived and was championed by her son, Laurie. (…)

While the figures in her work remain unresolved, scholars have suggested they might be self-portraits, or images of her Myrinerest, her dead children of the family she never knew. All we know is that in a letter to a friend, Gill once wrote, “My pictures take my min off the worries.”