The Artist Files: Alteronce Gumby
Posted by Bisley Store on Dec 9th 2025
The Artist Files is our new series exploring how working artists shape their studios, their systems, and their creative worlds. We begin with Bronx-based multidisciplinary artist Alteronce Gumby, whose work moves through color with cosmic depth. Presented courtesy of Alteronce Gumby Studio.
There’s a certain gravity in the way Alteronce Gumby approaches color — an understanding of its emotional charge, its cosmic origins, and the way it shapes how we see ourselves in the world. A New York City–based artist working across painting, ceramics, installation, and film, Gumby builds entire universes from iridescent surfaces and prismatic shifts. His work feels alive: shimmering, luminous, and in constant motion, as if each piece carries a piece of the cosmos within it.
Gumby’s passion for art didn’t arrive early or easily. He grew up removed from museums and professional art circles, and the idea of building a life entirely around making things felt distant. It wasn’t until a college trip to the Picasso Museum in Barcelona that everything shifted — an experience that widened his sense of what art could be. His practice has taken him from Dutchess Community College to Hunter College, and ultimately to Yale School of Art.
Since then, his work has been exhibited at Nicola Vassell Gallery, Hauser & Wirth, and Gagosian; featured in ARTnews, Cultured, Frieze, and Vogue; and collected by institutions such as the Guggenheim, the Studio Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Hirshhorn. His recent documentary COLOR — exploring how culture and geography shape our relationship to color — won wide acclaim, and its follow-up, COLOR in Nature, is already underway.
This season is especially significant for Gumby's career, featuring two major exhibitions:
Walk on the Moon at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery | Now open through January 17, 2026
Gumby's first exhibition with the prestigious Jeffrey Deitch Gallery brings together new works that evoke a lunar quiet and cosmic scale.
If Herr Street Could Talk at Susquehanna Art Museum | Now open through February 22, 2026
In his hometown of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Gumby has debuted a deeply personal body of work. This exhibition is an exploration of place, memory, and identity, expanding on the artistic vocabulary he is known for.
Inside the studio, though, the work begins in quieter ways. Gumby’s process is layered and meticulous, built around experimentation, controlled chaos, and long hours of material exploration. His space reflects that balance — part laboratory, part launchpad. As part of The Artist Files, we sat down with Alteronce to talk about how he organizes his studio, how he manages the demands of a multi-disciplinary practice, and how structure (or the lack of it) shapes the way he approaches color on a cosmic scale. Read on for our Q+A with Alteronce on the rhythms, habits, and organizational systems that anchor his creative world.
Bisley Store: What does a good day at the studio look like?
Alteronce Gumby: I arrive at the studio around 7 o'clock. I get up early in the morning. My alarm goes off at 5 am. I usually meditate, go to the gym, and then head to the studio. I like to work between 7 am and 3pm — my sweet spot. That's when I'm at my highest energy. I'll light an incense, maybe put on some music, and if I have a project that I worked on the previous day, I'll look at it for about an hour. Then, I'll really try to figure out how to advance that piece or start another one. I flow through the day. I think a perfect day would actually be no meetings, no phone calls — everyone just leaving me alone for, like, six hours straight. Maybe I could take a walk during lunch, clear my head, come back, and then be out of here about, like, 3 o'clock. That's a perfect day in the studio for me.
BS: You sound like someone who gravitates towards routine. Can you talk a little bit about balancing the relationship between routine and creativity?
AG: I think routine just gives me a groove, a roadmap, and consistency. A lot of being an artist involves being consistent, at least with studio practice. Like, coming to the studio every day at a particular time sets a good habit for me to get into a specific workflow, and to kind of zone in, so that I'm constantly thinking about the series or body of work that I'm working on, especially when I'm getting ready for a show. It's easy for me to plan out the production schedule and the time leading up to the shipment schedule because I'm familiar with my routine and schedule. I know how long it takes me to work on a painting and finish it. Being able to come into the studio every day also gives me the liberty to experiment with things. Having a regimen and managing my time effectively during the creative process helps me focus a little more.
BS: Thinking specifically about your tools, and the things that you use to create – how does organization of those things play into this idea of routine, and the balance of routine and creativity?
AG: I am organized. When a spirit moves me to actually paint or do something, I need to know where everything is. I had a palette table here; my brushes need to be washed and are ready to go. I hate it when I'm ready to paint and I have to clean an entire bucket of brushes. So I need the brush to be there, I need to know where all my paints are. And I use like 3 different types of paint sometimes. I need to know where all those things are. I need to know that I have enough of that paint to actually execute something in that moment. So, making sure supplies are filled when I need to knock things out.
Sometimes I'm working on a watercolor, sometimes I'm just sketching in my sketchbook, sometimes I'm creating paintings, sometimes I'm pouring resins, and sometimes I'm dyeing fabric. There are numerous departments and various media outlets. The studio could transform into a dye studio one day and then become a painting studio the next. Or both happening at the same time. So I need to have organized sections in the studio. Things are somewhat departmentalized, but they also need to be organized at the same time.
BS: What do you demand of the workspace?
AG: Natural light. I need a window situation. I paint at a significant scale, so I needed a specific type of ceiling height clearance. I've been in this studio for about three years now. In New York City, it's like insulation and HVAC — all critical. This is an ancient building. Single pane windows. When it's hot, it's hot; when it's cold, it's cold; when it rains, we get leaks. Yes, I needed a new space that wouldn't leak, have heat, and have natural light, and also be a space where I could continue to work with all these mediums I'm using. It needed to feel like this, where I could do anything.
BS: Do you have an emotional attachment to this space? Is it hard to say goodbye?
AG: It is a little hard to say goodbye. When I first entered the space, I used it as a live-work space. I lived here for two out of the three years I've been in this space. It's one of my first ideal studio situations, like in New York. I wake up, and I'm in a studio. I've made a lot of good work here. But, you know, the thing about New York is you're also, like, playing a real estate game. So you have to be able to say goodbye to certain real estate situations to progress through life in your career, I guess.
I would love to experience a live-work situation again, but I would prefer to own the building. And then I could outfit it the way I wanted. One of the reasons I chose this studio is that it has its own en-suite bathroom and a shower. So, it's like I have my own bathroom, with a shower and a sink; there's no reason I can't live here. Actually, I've been enjoying the ten-minute walk to the studio that I now have from the apartment. Perhaps later in life, I'll consider another live-work situation. But I'll build a house in one place, and then have a little path to another structure that will be a studio.
BS: Do you have any pins on a map for a future studio location?
AG: The mountain towns of the Hudson Valley, like the Catskills. I like mountains, mountain views, and good hikes. I'm from Pennsylvania. I'm also considering Lancaster County, Lebanon County, and the New York City area, as it's very agricultural, allowing for the growth of various crops, which is also attractive to me. Additionally, I'm interested in exploring areas outside the country.
Alteronce uses an 8-Drawer
MultiDrawer in Doulton Blue.
Three drawer heights make the MD8 a catch-all solution for art supplies of every scale. Add the caster base to keep your workflow flexible and mobile.
