Gena Brodie Robbins

Distant Memory, Abstract Painting

2024

Gena Brodie Robbins was born in Macon, Georgia and raised in Tifton Georgia, graduating from Tift County High School in 1986. Both of her parents were teachers and coaches. When the family went to the beach in the summers, her dad taught her how to paint on sand dollars. She learned how to paint sunsets using Walter Foster How to booklets at the local hobby shop. Robbins was also trained at a young age to sing, however, she did not love Latin lyrics and had horrible stage fright, but she knew that she loved visual arts. So, she formally studied art at Valdosta State University with a BFA in art education, earned an MFA in painting at Savannah College of Art and Design and won a studio space in NYC through SCAD at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts. Robbins began painting full time after receiving a diagnosis of Generalized Myasthenia Gravis, after moving from Savannah to Atlanta. Her current body of work stems from an interest in the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 60s. She explores the various emotions and moods that can be visually created through subtle lighting in combination with the abstract human form. Her painting process involves an immersive experience, where she ends up practically covered in paint and Robbins says that her dogs and cat leave the studio from time to time with a bright green tail or white paws. When she’s not in the studio, Robbins is teaching others to paint, enjoying a pot of tea while writing poetry, reading a crime novel or hiking the Appalachian trails with her labs in the north Georgia mountains.