Recede Emerge by Renee Bareno
Recede Emerge by Renee Bareno
Recede Emerge by Renee Bareno
Recede Emerge by Renee Bareno
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
I think many of us, like myself, live in the gray area. It’s neutral, neither white nor black, and it is more akin to different degrees of transition.
On a spectrum, there are those that gravitate towards the ends, the extremes, the binaries, the black and white, the off and on, the hot and cold, or the beginning and end. I find solace in the space in between.
Gray has been holding my attention for some time now. I didn’t realize that it was prepping me for a stage in life where I would step into a role of elder caregiving for my parents. Sometimes gray is a maddening place to be. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes it is sad, and sometimes it is loving. I attempt to navigate this world with compassion and grace. These pieces are about my experience in elder caregiving and traversing the gray area.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
When I work on a piece, I am engaging in a kind of visual storytelling. It is a personal narrative that is imbedded with recurring themes of communication, connections, time, the natural world, the inner world, and relationships of all of these content areas. Environmentalism is another theme that surfaces in my work and is very close to my heart and personal narrative.
Reduce: I make my own paints such as oils and encaustics. My interest in making my own paint was first perked when I was in a class that Carlos Villa taught during my time at the San Francisco Art Institute. He brought in Robert Gamblin as a guest speaker and presenter one day. Prior to that I had never thought much about how my paint was made. In another class, Irene Pijoan brought in her encaustics rig and gave a presentation on how she worked with that medium. I was fascinated. I realized my paint was sometimes inconsistent, and I liked the surprise of imperfections resulting from it. I buy raw materials and use them conservatively. I make what I need each session that I enter the studio and in return have no need to purchase tubes, jars, and cannisters.
Reuse: In the creation of my work, I borrow practices from my life experiences. For example, the use of found materials that I collect and archive is a direct influence from growing up in a multi-generational home with my grandparents who grew up during the Great Depression. They saved and reused everything.
Recycle: Sometimes old paintings or drawings resurface in a new configuration of an entirely new piece.
Rot: Some pieces, in their fragility, breakdown, wear out, or get weathered and damaged.
EXHIBITION GALLERY
