Today we’d like to introduce you to Kentra Gilbert.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was born and raised from my mother’s womb in Houston, Texas. I have always had a passion for creating art my entire life. I realized early how art was therapeutic. It allowed me to be in control when certain areas in my life were out of my family’s control. It relieved me of emotions I didn’t quite know how to express in words. So, my artwork became my way to communicate with others about emotions. For most of my childhood I was an only child and suffered trauma from being sexually abused, so I spent most of my time entertaining myself by making art. I have been involved in art at every school grade level every since kindergarten. I was in art clubs, National Art Honors Society and participated in the Visual Arts Scholastic Events.
I started exhibiting her work in 2008 at various events while in college at the University of Houston in attempts to get some exposure and direction of where I wanted to go with my art. I started out as graphic communications major at U of H. After many failed attempts of trying to be accepted into U of H’s graphics block and having an anxiety attack in class, I decided to major where my heart was…painting. After changing my major, college life became much less stressful and more enjoyable. I finally started feeling like I was in the right direction even though I had not figured out what was my artistic voice. It was the very last semester of college when I figured out how and what was my artistic voice.
After receiving my Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Houston in 2011, I started working full time at the print shop I interned at during my time as a graphic communications major. While working there, I learned how to create my own promotional items and observed how to market my art with my perspective. For years I did everything I could to network with other artists and be involved in as many art events as possible. One week in 2012, I started to feel lethargic. I was rapidly losing my appetite, having severe migraines, achy body and my gentle cycle were unusually heavy. I ended up being hospitalized to have a blood transfusion; my body was not producing blood fast enough to keep up with what I was losing from my cycle. I ended up canceling my participation in an art exhibition to finish my recovery. I thought that was going to be my last week alive. Once I was fully recovered, I did some overall self-reflection. It came to a point where I had to accept that art was not financially doing well for me. So, I started on focusing on having multiple jobs, planning out a series of paintings and not as much on getting into exhibitions.
While supporting one of my former U of H classmate and close friend at her graduate thesis presentation at Houston Baptist University, I was recruited and offered a scholarship to attend their graduate program for the following school year after she showed them my current art at the time. Graduate school was never something that I thought about doing even when most of the classmates from U of H went to achieve a Master’s degree. Nervous from being out of school for so many years and not feeling very accomplished with my art, I was hesitant to accept the invitation. After getting to know the current graduate students and faculty from many visits and events, I warmed up to the idea of going to graduate school and started by the process of applying.
The year I was supposed to start graduate school in 2015 was very difficult. I started a new job on Father’s day that summer, a month later my grandmother was hospitalized, two weeks later she passed away, three weeks later I started graduate school, and a week later I was married. Just when things started to feel like it was getting better, things started to fall apart and I it took everything in me hold myself together long enough just to go outside. During my time at HBU, I dedication art that I was creating for my thesis to my grieving the loss my of my grandma and the rebuilding of myself to be whole again so that I can be a wife to my husband. I received my Master of Fine Arts from Houston Baptist University in 2017. I am currently still trying to rebuild myself from my depression after my grandma’s death to get my confidence back into painting and exhibiting my work again.
Please tell us about your art.
I mostly create geometric pattern paintings on canvas and wood with various types of acrylic paint. Each series of my paintings are a direct reflection of my life around the time I am creating them. I want to create work that makes people gravitate to it and allow themselves to be immersed in the work. I admire and study the masters of GRAV Art, Kinetic Art, Op Art, Minimal Art, and Colorists. My inspiration comes from nature, emotions, and sounds. All of it is used in my work to display the way light, space, movement, and mood work together as one. My paintings are done by hand in a perfectly imperfect manner. My strive for perfection will not allow me to not measure each line and shape to a precise size that balances off one another. As precise as I try to make it, I always leave some areas imperfect like life.
Through the emotional association of colors and shapes, having orderly patterns in my work is a representation of trying to have a sense of control of one’s self, a situation and life. The breaks in the patterns are when one loses control in things that they cannot control. The optical illusions are more like life illusions. It is a beautiful deception of the perfection of constantly layering to make another area look great that is falling apart. My process of adding and removing tape is a metaphor for the adding and removing of emotions and mental states.
What do you think about conditions for artists today? Has life become easier or harder for artists in recent years? What can cities like ours do to encourage and help art and artists thrive?
For a long time, I have seen the older galleries not having space to be open to having new artists from the area. I think they should at least recommend artists to another gallery that they seem would be a good fit for them instead of not taking the time of day to see what the artist has to offer. Newer galleries have space but do not always have the audience to bring in enough patrons to be able to keep them financially afloat. Since my time in college, I have seen so many galleries opening and closing. I understand that the galleries are more focused on the business side but more artists are starting to shy away from trying to be represented by galleries and taking on the business of art for their own work. We understand that the galleries have to get paid, but sometimes that does not leave enough money left for the artist to survive on.
This on top of the how some have not paid artists and scammed them out of their art and money, leaves the rest of us artists wondering if running our own art as a business with our own team of people would be the better route. It is making it harder for an artist to believe that they can make a stable living without feeling like our only other option is to become an art teacher. In college, they often push the issue of a student getting a teaching certificate to become a teacher not realizing some aren’t meant to be teachers. Then, these art teachers struggling to arrange a time to create their own art. On top of that, they have to pay for their supplies for their classes out of pocket because this government does not care enough about funding education, let alone art in education. So we artists end up hopping from one struggle to the next. The only artists that teach and have time to create that I have seen are professors. And even those positions to become a professor are limited. The cities need more art initiatives and programs, that do hurt the pockets of artists, to display multiple forms of art in various sites. The average person does not realize that it cost us, artists, to enter into some exhibitions, festivals, and events. When people do not show up and purchase any art at these events, the artist has lost money regardless if people think they are talented.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
I have my work displayed on various social media sites, my website, scheduled personal viewings, in a few art patrons’ personal collections and a painting in the collection of the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art in Dallas, Texas. The action is the best way people can show support for my work or any other artists’ work. Words filled with compliments and constructive criticism is great, but action overshadows words on all levels. The action is purchasing a painting, creating an event for us to participate in to display our work, sharing photos of the art with others and coming to the exhibitions with other people to see the work in person.
Contact Info:
- Address: 10639 Sandpiper Dr Houston, TX 77096
- Website: http://kgdaartist.wixsite.com/kgdaartist
- Phone: 8325335875
- Email: kgdaartist@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kgdaartist/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KGdaArtist.fanpage
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/KGdaArtist
- Other: https://squareup.com/market/kg-da-artist
Image Credit:
All photos are courtesy of Kentra Gilbert (me). I take my own photos. One photo has a local artist who recently passed away, Michel H. Draper, tagging his name on my interactive painting “Wuz Here
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