Roberta Gentry

Roberta Gentry’s work is inspired by the natural world and the balance of order and chaos. Through her paintings, which incorporate color and contrast as a rhythmical element, Gentry explores the connections and conflicts that occur between architecture and biology, questioning the divide between natural and artificial. 

Gentry begins each painting with a grid and proceeds to grow and nurture each composition through it. Akin to gardening or weaving, the grid is important to the artist as a way to form the vertical and horizontal movements of the painting. Gentry often works with thin, washy acrylic, building up the surface of each painting with multiple translucent layers. In this way, she paints with openness and manipulates the experience of time. At any given point, one can see the beginning and the end of each painting, with each layer staying transparent enough that the canvas ground is always visible, even deep beneath the color.

 

Gentry received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in two-dimensional studies from the University of Arizona, and her Master of Fine Arts in painting from the State University of New York. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Ladies’ Room LA, Elephant Art Space, and Joyce Goldstein Gallery, among others, and she has been featured in group exhibitions at Reynolds Gallery, My Pet Ram, Ruth Gallery, SCOTTY, and Bozomag, and elsewhere. Her work was recently featured in Ghost Ship, a group exhibition co-curated by Bozomag and Ramiro Hernandez at Massey Klein Gallery, on view from March 29th through May 11th, 2024.

Her work has been featured in publications such as Voyage LA, Flaunt Magazine, Shoutout LA, Fabrik Magazine, LA Times, and Maake Magazine. The artist lives and works in Los Angeles, California.