L. Renee Nunez
Installation
Painting
3D
Watercolor
Resume
Statement
Galleries
Bio
Press
News/Events
Blog
Contact

Up Coming/Current Exhibits:
Everything, Gallery Black Lagoon, Austin, TX - May 3-26, 2013

• People's Gallery, City Hall, Austin, TX - February 2013 - January 2014


Colony; currently at Austin City Hall: acrylic on hand cut canvas, cast shadows, reflected color, nails; 28in X 34in; 2011

grayDUCK gallery and my work featured in New American Paintings article by Brian Fee

• works available for online purchase through GenerousArt.org

 

 

 




 

Installation:

back to top

     







Painting:

back to top

 






3D:

back to top






Watercolor:

back to top


 





Resume:

Education
2000 B.A. Studio Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX

Selected Exhibitions - * Solo Exhibit
2013 Everything, Gallery Black Lagoon, Austin, TX
2013 People's Gallery, Austin City Hall, Austin, TX
2012 People's Gallery, Austin City Hall, Austin, TX
2012
Big and Bright: New work from Texas, Curator: Jessica McCambly, Southwestern College Art Gallery, Chula Vista, CA
2011
Pattern Plan, grayDUCK Gallery, Austin, TX
2011 People's Gallery, Austin City Hall, Austin, TX
2010
People's Gallery, Austin City Hall, Austin, TX
2010 Emergent Stream, Salvage Vanguard, Austin, TX *
2010
Waves of Petals, Tokyo Electron, Austin, TX *
2010
Frequencies in Nature, Gallery Black Lagoon, Austin, TX
2010 Four square, grayDuck Gallery, Austin, TX
2009
E.A.S.T., with KDHDC, Picture Box Studio, Austin, TX
2008 People's Gallery, Austin City Hall, Austin, TX
2005 Synapse, Casa Amarilla, Barrio Antiguo, Monterrey, Mexico
2004 Rio Brazos Art Exhibition, Tarleton Langdon Center, Granbury, TX
2004 Gulf Coast Art Exhibition, Texas Artist Museum, Port Arthur, TX

Public Art
2009 Regenerate, First Night Austin 2009 - with Megan Reilly, Austin, TX


Performance Work

2011
The Collective
Costumes by L. Renee Nunez
Choreography by Annette Christopher
Cafe Dance, Austin, TX

2008

Mountains, Ships, and Lives
Installation by L. Renee Nunez
Performance by Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Co.
Music by The Microphones
Austin Ventures Studio Theatre, Austin, TX

2007
Well Suited
Costumes by L. Renee Nunez
and Marc Nunez
Performance by Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Co.
Lighting by Megan Reilly
Design Center of Austin, Austin, TX


back to top

Statement:

Primary Statement -
The desire to activate a particular set of circumstances in painting fuels the creation of the body of my work. Most compelling to me in this process is the use of negative space to visually manifest a network of contiguous parts. I have found that the process of gleaning negative space requires a great deal of ritual pattern and because of its omnipresence it has become a subject itself. The desire to transform this network has led me to use different media and to move between two and three dimensional works.

The idea of a network of contiguous parts interests me because it mimics the unity of matter and raises questions about the space that exists between two material objects.

Early Bodies:
Early Bodies blends the structures of plant and animal bodies and explodes elements present in both. From a formal perspective "Early Bodies" extends the painting plane forward through 3-dimensional folding of the canvas and extends it backwards with the use of cast shadow and reflected color. The painted, sewn, and hand cut canvases allow light to pass through creating the cast shadows and allowing the painted back of the canvas to be seen reflected from the wall. It is likely that painting the square and grid for years in the Synaptic Route series created a desire to remove frame completely so the painting can breathe and move as an object without actually being a sculpture.

Inertial Haze:
Crafted of reclaimed cardboard, natural elements such as twigs, and handmade paper made from junk mail and paper scraps - products of the plant world that they mimic - Inertial Haze attempts to arrest a moment or event in nature even as it depicts that growth or population disappearing.

Synaptic Route: Endangered Species -
synapse: the point at which a nervous impulse passes from one neuron to another
synaptic route: physical path in the “circuitry” of the brain made by the repeated passage of nervous impulses

My Synaptic Route collection is a series of works using the grid and pattern to simultaneously document brain patterning and images of rare plants. Plant parts including the flower and fruit have a natural symmetry and intricacy - characteristics which lend themselves to the repetition of pattern making.

The idea for documenting brain patterning came from the term “muscle memory” which I learned as a professional modern dancer. Dancers and athletes in particular use this term to to describe the conjunction of mental memory and the conditioning of muscles to perform a particular movement or action. This idea for me spread into an exploration of patterns of thought, specifically those related to repetitive physical actions.

In my Synaptic Route collection this means giving attention to the physical synaptic route activated in the brain while creating. I wanted to “watch” and determine the formation of a synaptic route as it happened and document it in my work. In order for the pattern to be precise enough for a habit to form I needed a base structure: the grid.

The grid allows for substantially exact repetitions of a drawing which appear almost mechanical. The process of repeated drawing enables a precise route to “burn” into the brain. Each painting is a program designed to create a synaptic route for each image selected. This series features endangered plant species, species of special concern and rare plants.

Replicating endangered plants artificially not only produces documentation of the synaptic route, but the pattern itself dematerializes the surface of the painting creating a state of mind not unlike meditation. In this stillness and quiet endangered plants can be contemplated.

back to top

Galleries:

Gallery Black Lagoon - representation

grayDUCK gallery
- representation
GenerousArt.org - representation



back to top

Bio:
Renee's work focuses primarily on pattern, negative space, habitat, and endangered or imaginary plants. Recently her work has included large scale installations and collaborations for the Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Co. and First Night Austin. She has exhibited in Texas, Tennessee, Colorado, and Mexico and been published in Glamour Magazine (Italy) and El Norte - Vida (Monterrey, Mexico).

Renee's background as a professional modern dancer (formerly of Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Co.) greatly influences her as a visual artist and contributes a love of motion to her work.

back to top

Press:

2011 newamericanpaintings.wordpress.com by Brian Fee (October 13, 2011)
2011
feeslist.com by Brian Fee (October 5, 2011)
2011
modaustin.net by Todd Camplin (October 2011)
2011
The Austin Chronicle, the arts, by Robert Faires (June 24, 2011)
2011
TRIBEZA Magazine (June 17,2011)
2011
http://thataustingirl.blogspot.com - artwork (September 23, 2011)
2010
Austin360.com (July 3, 2010)
2008
Austin360.com, Seeing Things (June 13, 2008)
2005 El Norte – Vida, Monterrey, Mexico (June 23, 2005)
1994 Glamour Magazine, Italy, (August 1994)


back to top

News/Events:

• 04/16/2013 - Halfway to three quarters of the way into "Habitat"..
• 04/23/2012 - Currently generating ideas for new works incorporating new elements into "Early Bodies". Also brainstorming details for a new "Inertial Haze" installation.
• 04/13/2012 - Created seventeen new pieces for the "Early Bodies" series from Jan-April 2012

• 2010 saw the burgeoning new series "Early Bodies" check my Statement section for more about that


back to top

Blog:
Notes on my Process - blog

back to top

Contact:
paintings@reneenunez.com or 512 689-2716

back to top

© L. Renee Nunez