Gill attributed her artistic production to Myrninerest, a spirit guide whom she believed first came to her in 1920, following a period of serious illness. From then onwards, drawing became an essential part of her life, often taking place through the night and in states that Gill understood as forms of communication with the spirit world. Her practice extended beyond drawing into writing, knitting, crochet, weaving, embroidery and music, but it was through her ink drawings that she developed her most recognisable visual language.

Roger Cardinal, who coined the term Outsider Art in 1972, writes in his latest biography ‘The Life of Madge Gill’:

Gill’s frenetic improvizations have an almost hallucinatory quality, each surface being filled with checkerboard patterns that suggest giddy, quasi-architectural spaces. Afloat upon these swirling proliferations are the pale faces of discarnate and nameless women, sketched perfunctorily, albeit with an apparent concern for beauty, and with startled expressions.

Madge Gill (1882–1961) was a self-taught British artist who lived and worked in the East End of London. Her practice spanned drawing, textiles, embroidery, writing and other forms of handmade work, and was deeply connected to her belief in Spiritualism and her spirit guide, Myrninerest.