by UFFE HARDER

The art of Herbert Gentry is related to the spontaneous-abstract painting as cultivated by the circle around CoBrA and Høst­udstillingen. But in its development, in its formulations, it is independent and highly personal. Gentry's earlier pictures, which were often dense, have in the last years become lighter, where both shapes and colors are concerned. They have opened up.

The rhythm, which now shows itself on the background of and in this space, has something to do with breathing, relaxation and dancing. It is natural and often liberated, but natural as can only be achieved by the artist who has first made a spiritual contribution. 

The shapes in his pictures can hardly be recognized as sign writing, but are more like the direct print of a movement. Neither have they anything to do with expressionistic or tachistic explosion. They appear harmonious to the extent of expressing an achieved inner disengagement. However, one will discover that at the same time they are bursting with problems and tensions: a red color that burns, magical, behind the shapes of a painting, a web of colors and figures, changing with open spaces, as an alternation between forces and phases; an undertone of something looking from behind the artist, while he paints. 

In a large red and brown picture with a background of light canvas which in places is left untouched, the figures are quick tracks of movement, a whirl and footprints after a passage or a stirring presence. In other paintings one suspects shapes of plants, light falling through leaves. 

All this material is put into rhythm, organized through a participation of body and sensitivity and through the emotion of the soul. It has become molded and lifted beyond a merely physical plane.