written & interview by ABIGAIL HART
Working in painting and mixed media, Alteronce Gumby explores the limits created by cultural definitions of concepts like color, form and value. By pushing beyond those limits, Gumby seeks to create space for interpretation and curiousity.
Alteronce Gumby’s journey as an artist began with color, inspired by possibly one of the greatest masters of color — Picasso. Following in the footsteps of the Abstract Expressionists, Gumby has spent his career examining his own avenues of expression and definition. Based in New York City, Gumby has a BFA from Hunter College and an MFA from Yale, and it was during these studies that he became interested in the absence of diversity in fine art. Inspired to create a dialogue on social justice, Gumby’s art holds space for a viewer to experience color, feel it, and consider it.
Gumby also holds up other concepts for consideration — the nature of art, society, race and identity. As visual elements can be expressed through infinite variations, with layers of texture and finish expanding and effecting the viewer’s perception, Gumby questions the definitions that limit our perceptions. Gumby operates in a world inspired by culture, but he uses art to explore beyond the world he lives in. He engages with the viewer to question the preconceptions they might hold, and perhaps to choose a freer, truer version of their lives and themselves. Gumby found the freedom to explore and express his own experiences through abstract art and is sharing that freedom with the world.
