My painting is an attempt by me to visually contemplate things like... God and his will, human nature and our relationships, being in love, having a broken heart, being patient, joy, pain, addictions, obsessions, psychedelic recall, sex, deviance, pornography, natural beauty, naked ladies, colors, being born, outer space, unconditional love, subconscious, vandalism, big brother, cops, commercialism, capitalism, gluttony, kids getting killed in a war machine,  computers, nobody using their hands, and machines checking me out at the grocery store. Ive never taken an art class and have embraced my ignorance as raw...like my first exposure to art-  hardcore punk rock albums and show flyers from my youth in the early eighties...they were all d.i.y. made by the kids with their hands...not photoshop or google bite. Skateboard art and surfboard airbrush colors... were original and bright not generic and in Coke a Cola or Budweiser colors. My paintings evolve seemingly on their own...i try to harness them into kinda what my original idea was. It always ends where i never dream. Most of the art winds up pasted in the streets. Anyone who has ever gotten up knows and likely seeks the rush. Once its up I like to watch it evolve as mother nature beats it down and the kids tag it up. Ideally the transformations last in the city for years but sometimes its just hours...which you gotta get used to. I can never pass my own stuff without looking and i believe its a selfless as well as a selfish attempt to beautify the often gray mundane city landscape.

"I see something special and show it to the camera. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs". Sam Abell

Photography for me is more than the act of picking up a camera and pressing the shutter. It is an emotion. To capture a moment of joy, sadness, new life or surprise and translate that into an emotion for another is what drives me to pick up my Canon and shoot. It seems most every bio I have read starts the same. For me it is no different. I picked up my first film camera almost 11 years ago after the birth of my first child. Since that time, I have had another child and have upgraded to digital.  I look at each new day as an opportunity to show others through my lens the beauty of what I was seeing. My hope is that you too can feel what I see and share a moment of human emotion together.

I would like to especially thank my husband Rob for supporting me through this journey. My kids for being so patient and (most of the time) willing to be my subjects. This has been an incredible journey so far and I look forward to sharing the rest of it with you all. xoxo

RENÉE'S ARTIST STATEMENT

            My work originates from drawings and personal writings that focus on an internal world of thought and emotion. There is a correlation between drawing and writing as immediate forms of human expression and documentation. I use common materials such as found paper and ballpoint pen and combine traditional techniques with nontraditional forms of presentation.

BIO

            Renée was born and raised in Philadelphia. She holds a BA in Liberal Arts from Sarah Lawrence College with concentrations in visual art and theatre and an MFA in Drawing from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She studied printmaking at Il Bisonte Studio in Florence, Italy. As a graduate student, she was specially selected to speak on a panel discussion of Hans Hofmann’s students’ work in conjunction with the University Art Gallery’s exhibition In Search of the Real. She was also the recipient of a Mediterranean Studies Scholarship and the Jeanne M. Walsh Memorial Scholarship. Her travels and multi-disciplinary background continue to influence her work.