CHECK UP: MISSY GENTILE

Ten years later, the art goes on

by Eric A.T. Dieckman

Photograph by Gavyn Aaron

Every month during our 10-year celebration, we will revisit an individual whom we interviewed or who played a significant role in the issue a decade earlier. Launching the yearlong series, Eric Dieckman checks in with the artist Missy Gentile, who appeared in the first OutSmart in February 1994.

Some people have a certain quality about them. After you’ve spent time with them, you feel warm. Peaceful. There’s something about their voice or presence that soothes you. You leave feeling that your soul has been comforted. Artist Missy Gentile is one of those people. She exudes an inner tranquility. I recently caught up with Gentile (pronounced Gen-tilly) to learn what has transpired in her life since she spoke with OutSmart 10 years ago.

Gentile’s Studio Sophie is full of paintings, photographs, images, and phrases painted on the walls. One wall is hidden by paintings, all different shades of blue, including a large canvas textured in cobalt. The rich saturated color, a mix of inks and oil paint, is ethereal and engaging. Gentile made these paintings for a color-themed group show, which opens March 13 at Sippora, the midtown gallery. Though the blue canvases are beautiful, to say the least, Gentile’s color of choice is red. She loves its energy and inherent passion.

In her 1994 interview, Gentile said she wanted to paint full time within five years. Ten years later, she is almost there. To subsidize her artistic work, she teaches art to elementary school kids. “That helps me with my own painting, being around children,” Gentile said. “They’re so unbridled and innocent in their work.” Taking a cue from their energy, Gentile paints from her moods, especially with her larger abstract paintings.

Ten years ago, Gentile recalled her first exhibition, a 1993 group show at the now-shuttered Unique Boutique and Gallery. These days, almost all of her shows are solo. In a month or two, Gentile plans to have a show in College Station (“That’s a place that’s just waiting to explode [culturally]”) at a bookstore named Mighty Literaty. She has a line of greeting cards available locally at Sippora (10 percent of sales benefit the Pink Ribbons Project breast-cancer charity in memory of her mother). Gentile has fondest memories of a show at the Westheimer La Strada in February 2002 before it burned. “I started with 13 paintings, all figurative abstract. Huge pieces. I sold the whole show out in two months. I was bringing in other pieces because people wanted to take them off the wall.” Gentile has done a good deal of commission work, including a three-panel mural she completed in 2002 for Half Price Books in the Village.

Over the decade, some things have remained the same for Gentile, and some have, of course, changed. Her studio is named after her cat, which has been around since her 1994 interview. Sophie (in turn named for Sophia Loren) is now kept company by Georgio, an exceptionally friendly Cornish short-hair cat that knows no strangers. Gentile now has a different partner. “She’s the most supportive and loving partner. She believes in me as an artist, as a woman, and as a person. I see her as my life partner. I believe she’s my soul mate.” This time around, Gentile is sure she has found the right person, explaining their introduction as miraculous happenstance. “I went to Chances to play pool. Believe it or not, it helps me with my painting sometimes, because it’s so precise. I walked in, and there happened to be two of my good friends whom I hadn’t seen in about six months—including a woman who had a five-piece collection of my work—talking to this woman they had just met. They said, ‘Oh, this is the artist we were talking about.’ We just connected. It was instantaneous.”

Gentile still benefits from what she described as “menstrual wisdom” 10 years ago. “I really believe at that one certain time of the month, my creativity is so heightened, so intense, that I can’t keep up with it. I feel like my creativity comes out of every pore of my body.” Sometimes in her premenstrual state she can turn out as many as seven paintings a day. “I love it when it happens,” she says.

Another source of intense inspiration came with disaster. Just as many were strongly affected by the 9/11 disasters, Gentile, a New York native, found herself painting nonstop for 24 hours after the attacks. She created two works, The American Face and America Cries. “I started on the 12th of September. I didn’t mean to paint it. I had a big canvas stretched up on the wall and this just came out. I don’t remember sleeping. I don’t remember eating. I just painted.” The American Face appeared in the March 2002 issue of the international magazine Art Business News.

What lies in Gentile’s future? Down the line, she plans to move, probably somewhere else in Texas, while possibly keeping her studio here. She would like to see her work in the Menil Collection some day. “Or the Museum of Fine Arts or Contemporary Arts Museum. I want to keep on moving. I don’t want to ever get stuck.”

Eric Dieckman interviewed Juan Garza, M.D., for “People to Watch 2004” in the January issue.

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