Gemma was born and raised in South Yorkshire. She spent her early years living on a farm and then in a village on the Yorkshire/Derbyshire border at the edge of Sheffield, where her parents still live. She left when she was 18 to go to Edinburgh University to study Maths & A.I. but graduated with a degree in Art History instead.

When she moved to London to do an MA at the Courtauld Institute of Art she discovered that everyone in the art world was posh. She changed her surname to Rolls-Bentley on Facebook as a joke and it stuck. Gemma curated her first exhibition when she was a student in Edinburgh, a group show of fine art students in an abandoned travel agents. She's been curating ever since.

She's spent almost two decades working passionately to champion diversity in the field. Curating exhibitions and building art collections internationally, her curatorial practice amplifies the work of female and queer artists as well as providing a platform for art that explores LGBTQ+ identity.

Gemma is a creative consultant and advisor for brands, organisations, and cultural projects, in addition to teaching at numerous institutions including CSM, University of Oxford, the Royal College of Art, Glasgow School of Art, and Goldsmiths. She spent a decade working at the intersection of art and technology, holding positions of Chief Curator at Avant Arte and Curatorial Director at Artsy. Prior to that she spent 6 years working at Damien Hirst's studio, where she learned a lot about the art world (and what she wanted to help change).

She co-chairs the board of trustees for the charity Queercircle, and sits on the Courtauld Association Committee. She was previously a trustee for Deptford X. In 2011, Gemma launched the arts arm of the East London Fawcett Group and ran their 2012-2013 Art Audit campaign.

Recent curatorial projects include Realms at Carl Freedman Gallery, Ultraviolet for Cardion Arts, Tschabalala Self’s first public art project at Coal Drops Yard in London, the Tom of Finland Art & Culture Festival, and the Brighton Beacon Collection, which is the largest permanent display of queer art in the UK. In 2023, she curated the group exhibition Dreaming of Home at Leslie Lohman Museum of Art in NYC, and she hosted the accompanying podcast series.

Her debut book Queer Art; From Canvas to Club and the Spaces Between was published in May 2024 by Frances Lincoln. 

Gemma Rolls-Bentley lives in SE London with her wife, dementia specialist and poet, Danielle Wilde, their two children and two cats, My Little Pony and Ellen Degenerate. She is a member of a coven of executive witches called Sisters of the Sanitary Cloth.