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Spring ’24

An Interview with R&S Cover Artist Gala Bent

by Matt Comi
Matt Comi: Tell me about yourself, briefly.
Gala Bent: Mother of three, wife of one, lover of books, watcher of water, eater of ideas, maker of pictures
MC: Okay, so about the Rock & Sling cover art: True or False? It’s a goat-unicorn.
GB: False.
MC: In a lot of your art, and in the cover art in particular, you use an intense geometry contrasted with more organic line-work and imagery. Compositionally, its compelling. Want to talk about it?
GB: Sure– I am a little jealous of architects, so I pretend to be one in my drawings. Architecture is a malleable arrangement of geometry that contains looser things like air, water and people. I like that relationship, and the fact that we make buildings based on our bodies.
MC: Describe the first drawing you can remember drawing.
GB: I was given an easel with an attached pad of big paper, and I drew people with long legs. I was really proud.
MC: Hair figures pretty prominently in your imagery. Even when it’s not explicit, there are these hairline strokes. Am I catching anything? What’s the deal with hair?
GB: It’s beautiful and sort of creepy. Hair mimics other flowing forces, but also, when humanized, plays on a great array of themes… vanity, health, gender, fads, freedom, rebellion…
MC: Okay, you’re stealing someone’s art and putting your name on it, whose do you steal?
GB: Bjork.
MC: Tell me what you’re thinking about (art-wise) right now. What directions are interesting to you?
What are you exploring?
GB: The internalized landscape, tamed or domesticated wildness (zoos, aquariums, gardens, churches).
MC: Favorite kind of tree?
GB: Willow.
MC: Animal?
GB: Otter.
Matt Comi lives writes and makes art in the Pacific Northwest. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Birkensnake, Weave, and Nat Brut.

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