Today we’d like to introduce you to Gena Brodie Robbins.
Hi Gena, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My high school did not have a visual arts program, so I participated in chorus and show choir. My father knew I loved to paint, so on weekends and holidays, we would paint sunsets on sand dollars together using the Walter Foster how-to books. I also learned how to letter and paint murals helping my father who was a head football coach paint 50-foot helmets on the side of the football stadium in Tifton, Georgia. I eventually took an art class in college at Valdosta State University which was the catalyst that caused a change of my major from voice to art education. After teaching for several years (anything from drawing to foundation students at SCAD to AP studio art and ceramics to high school students), I refined my painting skills by studying at the Art Students League in NYC, the Scottsdale Artists’ School in Scottsdale Arizona, and abroad in France. I then went on to pursue my master’s of fine arts degree in painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design. There, I was awarded the SCAD-New York Studio Space held at the Elizabeth Foundation Arts Center in Manhattan. I learned how to paint large, 8-foot paintings on canvas and learned from other artists at the center how to begin promoting myself as an emerging artist. I have been painting mostly large-scale mixed media works ever since.
Recently, I had the largest solo show of my career, titled “Shift,” held at the Jonathan Mansfield main Gallery at the Quinlan Visual Arts Center in Gainesville, Georgia, August 12th- October 2nd, 2021. The show consisted of twelve- 10 foot, 8 foot, and 7-foot paintings, as well as fourteen- 6 to 4- foot paintings and thirty-five small works that make up an installation called the Bitch Face Series. The show was a reaction to the shifts so many of us are still going through in uncertain times. In the past two years, I have suffered through the grief of losing my beloved mother, close friends, my teaching job due to disability, sibling estrangement, debilitating pain from psoriatic arthritis, and the diagnosis of an incurable neuromuscular auto-immune disease called Generalized Myasthenia Gravis. Painful infusions and hospital stays have been my new normal and my recent body of work has been a reflection of the many stages of the human condition, such as illness, loss, anxiety, denial, isolation, prevarication, vulnerability, identity, distortion, transformation, hope, and acceptance. My new studio is located at UAC, Urban Art Collective in Chamblee, Georgia I am currently preparing for an upcoming artist retreat at Brodie Castle in Forres, Scotland, summer of 2022.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The toughest battles along the way have been losing my parents to cancer, being diagnosed with two debilitating autoimmune and neuromuscular disorders. And working through the pain of my chronic illnesses while painting the
large-scale works for the most demanding and largest upcoming solo show of my career.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My painting process involves an immersive experience, where I end up practically covered in paint. Most bodies of work stem from an interest in the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, as well as the New York abstract expressionistic movement of that time period. I explore the various emotions and moods that can be visually created through subtle and dramatic lighting in combination with the abstract human and animal form deconstructing, reconstructing, and destructing again, combining multilayered colorful imagery with painterly, aggressive, even intrusive marks. My work is mostly large scale, ranging from 4 feet to 8 feet in size, and involves the application of multi-media such as spray paint, ink, charcoal, encaustic wax, cold wax, oil, collaged papers, fabric, and found objects. When beginning a painting, I apply marks to the canvas that I place on the floor where I will use mops and brooms to push around the paint, pour and splatter fluid polymers or oils and then place the painting upright so the paint may drip and run down the canvas. I will then rotate the canvas so the drips will move in the opposite direction. Like an excavation, I will cover past marks, wipe away and re-apply different marks, showing a history of decision making. Background marks peek through, like a faded memory, overlayed with gestural
shape, line, and form. My upcoming solo show will consist of many large-scale figurative works and will have a designated wall for an installation of thirty-five 12 x 12 mixed media and encaustic smaller works called the “Resting Bitch Face Series.”
I am most proud of this smaller body of work, revealing iconic faces of women, especially women of old, Hollywood, royalty, entertainment, and politics confined to the rules of their persona, such as the Queen of England (including the Queen in the Game of Thrones, Leana Headey) Margret Thatcher, Ruth Ginsberg, Vivian Lee, Patti Lamarr, Ava Gardner, Marlene Dietrich, Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Crawford, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lopez, Kristen Stewart, Anna Kendrick, and Rhianna, to name a few, who can really pull off one “helluva” a resting bitch face. These works exhibit repeated patterns like polka-dots that merge with gestural line drawings of each iconic figure which is then washed over with transparent or semi-transparent color and more spray-painted patterns. Parts of the face are then redrawn to be even more distorted, and various areas emphasized, symbolizing the facade projected to the public. Many of the women of Hollywood played the femme fatale, the good girl, or funny girl- restricted or imprisoned to the same type of character role. Each iconic face peers through a vale of repeated patterns similar to the dots on the older TV screens or the colored dots that make up the images of newspapers and magazines produced and played over and over again. Many of us are… or have been for the past
year, living in our own sets, similar to a television show or play that is limited to the living room, kitchen, bedroom, or grocery store, and given minimal control within unknown and changing constraints.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I have been lucky to have had been positively influenced and supported by my parents, students, friends, teachers, and artists. My husband, Tracy, has also been my foundation and soulmate, catching me when I fall due to the weight of the challenges of chronic illness and grief and inspiring me daily to become a better artist, wife, and human. My faith has given me light during my darkest times and my drive to manage my health has luckily brought me into the offices of Dr. Jagindra. Mangru and Dr. Gavin Brown, who have directed my treatments to successfully minimize my symptoms to the best of their abilities. I was extremely lucky to have received the “Davinci” robotic thymectomy by Dr. Shady Eldaiff, one of the best thoracic surgeons in the nation if not the world. I knew it was fate when the robot aiding in the surgery was named after a master artist. I have been very blessed and quite lucky to still be physically able to paint and continue in life as a successful, practicing artist.
Pricing:
- Small works inch works retail between 300 and 1000.00
- Mid-size works can range between 1500.00 and 3600.00
- Large-scale works retail between 4200.00 and 9000.00
Contact Info:
- Email: genabrodie@brodiestudio.com
- Website: brodiestudio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ genabrodierobbins/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gena.b.robbins
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/genabrodie
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCiw_bHH8hwjXWPIgN3kkcaQ
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/brodie-studio suwanee
Image Credits
All images by Gena Brodie Robbins
