Born in 1960 to a family of artists in New Orleans, Humphries has lived and worked in New York since the 1980s. She attended the Parsons School of Design, New York, in 1985 and completed the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York, in 1986. Through layering, scraping, and smearing, Humphries focuses on motion and light to create energy that bounces back and forth between her abstract, gestural canvases and the viewer. Her work is in the permanent collections the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Tate Modern, London. Humphries participated in the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She is represented by Greene Naftali Gallery, New York.