Alteronce Gumby “Cross Colours”

Alteronce Gumby is an abstract contemporary artist, working across different mediums and disciplines. His work explores the visual and societal references of color and form as well as the opportunities within. Alteronce Gumby’s paintings subvert traditional understandings of light and color through the nuanced application of glass and oil paint on panel. This unique technique stems from the artist‘s concern of constantly redefining color’s and materiality’s meanings and connotations, and its grounding within society. Challenging the reception of the viewer, his works push the boundaries of color and form through their intricate web of darkness and light, spatiality and experience. Through his chromatic spectrums of iridescent color, the artist wishes to engage the viewer and expand the notions through which we perceive form and color, race and identity.

The apparent and striking materiality of the works gives reference to their process of creation and allows the viewer to see and re-feel the literal crafting behind each work. Referring to Frank Bowling, Stanley Whitney, Jack Whitten and Robert Rauschenberg as the painters’ influences, Gumby’s artistic technique – as his works themselves – constitute a jigsaw pattern of precise and hidden references, while abandoning traditional forms and techniques.

“It is hard for me to look at any color in the world and not think of the intentions behind it.”
– Alteronce Gumby

Alteronce Gumby graduated from Yale University’s MFA program where he was awarded the Robert Reed Memorial Scholarship. The artist holds a BFA from Hunter College, New York and completed a one year-long residency as the Harriet Hale Woolley scholar at the Fondation des États-Unis in Paris, France (2017). Alteronce Gumby was granted the AAF Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts as well as the Dumfries House Residency, Ayrshire, Scotland, UK, in 2015. Gumby’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Parrash Heijnen, Los Angeles, US, at False Flag and Charles Moffet gallery, both in New York, US, and at Fondation des États-Unis, Paris, FR. Alteronce Gumby participated in a group show at Hauser&Wirth Southampton, NY, US, and in Bode Projects’ Berlin artist-in-residence program in 2021. The artist lives and works in NYC, New York, US.