In vivid fields of brilliant oranges tempered by moody blues, Los Angeles-based artist Roberta Gentry builds balanced, sensual paintings that foreground the senses. Her upcoming solo exhibition, Blood Orange, unfolds at Track 16s East Hollywood location and runs through October 24, bringing together new works that revolve around symmetry, biomorphic growth, and a finely tuned restraint in color.
Symmetry, grids, and biomorphic growth
Gentry has long explored the relationship between the constructed and the natural, cultivating abstract, biomorphic forms that are often scaffolded by tall columns. Gravitating toward symmetry and restricted palettes, she composes rhythmic paintings that adhere to an underlying grid. Each canvas is built through multiple layers of thinned acrylic, accumulating subtle gradients that dissipate delicately across the surface. The result is a poised tension between order and organic motion, as measured structure meets the roving, unpredictable character of growth.
Tapestry echoes and the senses
The works in Blood Orange draw on the 16th-century La Dame e0 la licorne tapestriessix fiber works depicting a blond, lavishly dressed noblewoman flanked by a unicorn on one side and a lion on the other. Each tapestry correlates with one of the five senses, while text on the sixth reads c f Mon Seul D e9sirm, or to my only desire. Beyond the palette, Gentry renders specific elements from the series: the noblewomans velvet gown, a towering pipe organ, and the orange trees that anchor the backdrop. While some scholars read the tapestries as direct references to the senses, others propose a broader lens on how knowledge and information are gatheredparticularly through the sixth, more elusive panel related to emotion. Gentrys thinking meets this debate head-on; she often considers how we construct mythologies to interpret and explain our lived experiences, a concern that surfaces in the friction between her paintings ordered grids and the unruly drift of organic forms.
Selected works (all 2026, acrylic on canvas):
- The Mirror, 28 x 36 inches
- The Rose Lattice, 36 x 48 inches
- Two Tails, 14 x 18 inches
- Nine Holly Berries, 14 x 18 inches
- A Golden Collar, 48 x 60 inches
- Velvet Shoulders, 36 x 48 inches
- The Organists Arbor, 48 x 60 inches
- Ten Oranges, 18 x 14 inches
- Unicorn, 36 x 28 inches
Lush with color and texture yet governed by a clear internal logic, Blood Orange channels historical echoes into present-tense abstractiona study in how sensation, structure, and story meet on the painted grid.
