Our Faculty

Sarah Margaret gibson

Academic Director

Sarah Margaret Gibson (b. 1988) is from Cincinnati, OH.

Sarah Margaret is a contemporary realist artist, specialising in figurative works, portraits, and still-lifes.

Gibson received her formal training in drawing and painting in Florence, Italy. From 2008-2010 she studied at the Angel Academy of Art. And in the autumn of 2010 she elected to continue her education at The Florence Academy of Art, from which she graduated in 2013. Upon graduating, Sarah Margaret was selected to participate in the academy’s prestigious Post-Graduate Year from 2013-2014, studying directly under the tutelage of Daniel Graves, founder of the Florence Academy of Art. She taught in the FAA’s Intermediate Program from 2013-2015. Over the course of her seven years in Florence, Gibson was profoundly influenced by the work and philosophy of the Old Masters and by the mentorship of the many great living artists she came into contact with.

Gibson moved to Scotland in 2016 along with her husband and fellow GAFA instructor, Lee Craigmile. Before opening the Glasgow Academy of Fine Art, she taught private tuition lessons out of her personal studio, as well as giving lectures and courses at various schools throughout Scotland.

Gibson's work is shown throughout the U.S. and Europe and can be found in the New Britain Museum of American Art and in numerous private collections. 

website: Www.SarahMargaretGibson.com

Emmanuelle Capatos

Principle Instructor of Anatomy

Born and raised in South Africa, Emmanuelle Capatos (b. 2000) originally moved to the UK to study Theatre and French at University of Bristol. In 2020 she changed realised that her true passion was in art, and a year later she began her formal training at the Glasgow Academy of Fine Art. In January of 2023, she began teaching at the Academy as an assistant instructor in the Core Programme, and a year later she progressed to become the Principle Instructor of Anatomy. She believes that the human form is one of the most complex and beautiful systems ever designed, and that knowing the anatomy when drawing the figure is as essential as knowing vocabulary when writing poetry.

Her focus for the next years of study is to develop a fluency in her craft - to learn a language of realism that captures the truth of a subject materially, and through this language to give form to an emotional or spiritual realism that lies subtly underneath.

She hopes to spend her life revealing a light and beauty through art that sits so abundantly around us.

Instagram: @akeenartist

Lee Craigmile

Managing Director, Instructor

Lee Craigmile (b.1985) is from Largs, Scotland.

Lee Craigmile grew up in the seaside town on the west coast of Scotland, where he first developed his interest in the Scottish landscape and his passion for painting. From 2005 to 2012 Craigmile studied drawing and painting at the Glasgow School of Art in their continuing education department. 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. Lee graduated from the Florence Academy in June of 2015, after which he returned to the west coast of Scotland.

Lee currently splits his time between working on commissions in his personal studio, and teaching at the Glasgow Academy of Fine Art. 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.

Website: www.leecraigmile.com

Jason Michael Bentley

Assistant Instructor in the Core Programme

Jason Michael Bentley (b. 1978), from Champaign IL, is a traditional realist artist living in the west coast of Scotland. He is currently an advanced student and Assistant Instructor at the Glasgow Academy of Fine Art.

Jason’s work is mostly focused on the portrait and figure, though he also explores landscapes in oil and water colour. Jason is inspired by the academic process of drawing and painting from life, and how this fosters a true presence in the moment while in the act of painting; he revels in the discovery of beauty as the subject is translated from nature. As a life-long martial artist, Jason is attracted to discipline based pursuits and personal refinement. His early experiences in Tae Kwon Do colour his approach to the craft and technique of painting, as well.

Jason received an Associates Degree in Fine Art from Parkland College in Champaign, IL. where he fell in love with water colour under the tutelage of now retired professor Don Lake. Afterwards, he transferred into the graphic design program at the University of Illinois from which he got his BFA. He subsequently worked as a professional graphic designer, while continuing to study art independently in Champaign and later Chicago, where he set up a studio and began to take on commissions and teach private lessons in water colour painting.

In 2019 Jason relocated to Scotland with his wife and began studying at the Glasgow Academy of Fine Art, in pursuit of a deeper knowledge of the craft of drawing and painting classically from life.  Jason keeps a studio in the Merchant City area of Glasgow, where he paints for commission and galleries alongside his teaching and studies at GAFA.

Ke zhang

Adjunct Instructor

Ke Zhang (b. 1984) was born in Guiyang, China, where her parents were both cartographers at that time. Influenced by her art-loving parents, Ke developed a deep interest in drawing and painting from a young age and later became particularly attracted to classical and representational artworks. Ke moved to the UK in 2008 where she achieved a PhD in psychology. However, her long-lasting passion for fine art and visual interpretations of the world eventually led her to change course and pursue a career in representational art. The research she did during her postgraduate studies sharpened her mind for highly analytical, scientific thinking—a skill she has found useful in her artistic training as well. But what fascinates Ke even more than the scientific elements of artistic technique is the way in which art can go beyond science and the material, touching on the complexity of human beings and how we see and react to the world. 

Ke began her art education in 2016 by taking short courses at the Glasgow School of Art, where she first met Sarah Margaret Gibson and Lee Craigmile. In 2017 she began studying privately with Gibson in her personal studio, following an atelier style programme of study on a one-to-one basis. During their private lessons, Ke was given a great deal of attention from Gibson as she worked alongside her on her own projects, and thus was able to familiarise herself with a working artists’ daily practices. Ke went on to join The Glasgow Academy of Fine Art when it opened in 2019, becoming the academy’s very first graduate in 2021. 

Ke now specialises in representational oil painting and is particularly interested in portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. She now lives in Oxford, where she has set up her personal studio, and commutes up to Glasgow routinely to teach in the Glasgow Academy of Fine Art’s Core Programme. She believes that selective time spent on teaching inspires others as well as her own development as an emerging artist. Ke’s work is shown at Scotland Art Gallery in Glasgow.