Toni Gentilli is an artist and curator with a background in archaeology and museum studies. She explores historical and contemporary relationships between technology, nature, human perception, and consciousness. Equal parts instinctual alchemy and scientific inquiry, her work often combines seemingly disparate materials, such as light sensitive chemistry with recombinant human DNA synthesized from E. coli bacteria in the form of insulin to create camera-less photographs, or her own blood and various forms of sugar with handmade plant-based pigments in large-scale paintings that are imbued with their own lifeforce and change over time.

In recent work, Gentilli focuses on parallels between her experience living with multiple chronic autoimmune illnesses and the invisible labor of our more-than-human kin, particularly plants and microbes, and how the effects of environmental degradation entwine these subjects along with the mutuality of their wellbeing.

Gentilli’s artwork has been exhibited in California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. She works as the Residency Director at the Santa Fe Art Institute. She was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and she lives and works in Northern New Mexico.

tonigentilli.com