If you’re searching for something truly unique in the way of Christmas gift ideas, then the artwork of artist and teacher Gail Altschuler may be just what you’re looking for.

The South African-born Londoner is holding an exhibition of her drawings, paintings, printmaking and ceramics at Lauderdale House in December, and her bold, striking designs and pieces of art are sure to delight the art lover in your life.

Gail weaves intense colours together to create moods and atmospheres that relate to her memories and experiences of her native Africa, America, Europe and the United Kingdom. The colours of South Africa, where she grew up, and the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where she studied, remain strong influences on her work.

“My paintings on canvas and prints on paper are abstract but refer to landscapes and cityscapes,” the artist writes. “They aspire towards the infinite rather than the specific.”

Gail is inspired by nature and landscape, jazz music and ceramic tiles, and she describes herself as being interested in exploring the emotive power of colour and pattern.

She spent six months in a log cabin in the hills of Los Gatos in California in 2001, where she concentrated on the themes of trees, leaves and nature, integrating these into repeating patterns based on a grid to emphasise the particular shape of the tree trunks in silhouette and the leaf outlines, creating a rich and textured ground.

Since 2004, her work has continued to explore more concrete forms. Also on display will be a number of her ceramic torsos, which further reflect this transition.

Alongside Gail’s work will be that of some of her students at The Art Circle, artists who all inspire and inform each other.

Gail Altschuler and the Art Circle exhibition is at Lauderdale House, Waterlow Park, Highgate Hill, from December 10 to December 21, Wednesday to Friday, 11am to 4pm, and Sundays, 10am to 5pm. Details: 020 8348 8716, lauderdalehouse.co.uk