Rhonda Gates spent her formative years between rural southwest Michigan and a small town in northwestern Missouri. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Education in Teaching Art and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Northwest Missouri State University, Maryville, MO. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US and is included in several important private and corporate collections including the Elmhurst Art Museum (IL) and Swedish American Regional Cancer Center (IL). Reviews have been published in publications including Art in America, Artnet, and the Chicago Tribune. 

Gates' paintings strike a delicate balance between the suggestion of spatial depth and the flatness of surface. Simplified representations of natural forms serve as environmental cues, furthering the tension between surface and space. Her paintings begin as personal experiences in nature during which she focuses on the relationships between the formal elements within the scene. In her studio, she digs deeper into her observations and memories, and meditates on the experiences to isolate them visually into an inherent or implied geometric structure.