UPCOMING EVENT: SOLO SHOW "A 100 Lives Long Journey" - Timisoara/ Romania, November 2013

My ancestors were French and German colonists from the Lorraine and the Schwarzwald region that came to the Banat in 1770. My mother remembers that when she was a child, in Tomnatic the prayer Our Father was still recited in French. After the Yalta Treat in February 1945 when Romania (one of the countries former allied with Germany) was placed under Soviet influence, things changed dramatically. At 35, my maternal grandfather, his sister and his brother were deported along with 68.000 other persons to a labor camp in Russia. At 43, my paternal grandfather committed suicide in labor camp no.1651 in Ufalo/ Russia. In 1951, my great-grandfather was 68 years old and my great-grandmother 66 when they were deported, along with 40.320 other persons, to the Baragan steppes and had to live in a hole dug in the ground. At 18, my father was sentenced to 4 years hard labor on the Danube-Black Sea Canal, along with almost 100.000 other people. My mother was 19 years old she was expelled from University, like many students in those days.

This project talks about loosing your roots but never abandoning your faith, about stories never told but finally revealed, many years later. But most of all about the survival of the spirit, when someone is forced to live by the rules of History.

Opening: November 15th.

The 41st International Print Award Carmen Arozena - Brita Prinz Arte Gallery, MADRID/ SPAIN, October 2013

In March 2005, not very happy with my life, I traveled to the Canary Islands to look for peace and, eventually, an inspiration for the future. A few days later I already knew what I had to do: to continue my studies in visual arts. It was the best decision ever and it completely changed and brightened up my life! 

“A One Hundred Lives Journey" (http://reneerenard-art.blogspot.ro/2013/12/a-one-hundred-lives-journey-helios.html ), the project I am currently working on, talks about the tragedies that marked my entire family during the communist regime. The only way I can repair all the injustices that have been done to them is to send works with their portraits all over the world and tell their story. In this way they will regain, so many years after their death, the right to finally travel freely.

Goodbye Forever

digital print, 100 x 70 cm, 2013

The Story Behind the Picture: 

March 18^th, 1955. My grandmother Prinz Aurelia receives permission to say goodbye to her father, Haman Dominic. Recently released after 4 years of political deportation, with his house, factory and land confiscated, his only chance of survival was to leave communist Romania. Although he lived for another 8 years, my grand-grandfather and my grandmother were never allowed to see each other again.

I was very happy when "Goodbye Forever" was one of the 30 works (out of 354 works and as many artists) selected for the 41^st International Print Award Carmen Arozena organized by Brita Prinz Arte (what an amazing name coincidence…). So how could I not be present at the opening in Madrid, to symbolically be close to my grand-grandfather and my grandmother?! And how could I not be overwhelmed with joy to know that after Madrid the exhibition will be presented in La Palma in the Canary Islands, the place where I started my journey into the world of arts?! Life sometimes closes its circles after many-many years… And the sad story of my grandmother has found a happier ending far away from home, almost 60 years later.

First Prize: Tomiyuki Sakuta

Second Prize: Gérard Espí García

Honourable Mentions: Antonio Barea, Anne-Catherine Nesa, Sara Slipchinsky, Gabriel Trustram.

Selected artists: Javier Agulló Rodríguez (Sealtres), Luis Cabrera Hernández, Pablo Casado Mena, Kraisak Chirachaisakul, Fátima Conesa Oliva, Hugo Crespo Pazos, Eugeniusz Delekta, Vanessa Gallardo Fernández, Claudia García Sosa, Samuel Hristov Georgiev, Dieter Grund, Inga Heamägi, Inmaculada Herrera Luque, Eva Hnatová, Zaloa Ipiña, Roberto Koch, Lauri Koppel, Michel Kotschoubey, Ismael Mansilla Orgambídez, Carlos Samuel Martínez Castañeda, Maite Martínez de Arenaza, José Alberto Ramírez Hernández, Renée Renard, Desislava Unger and Moisés Yagües.

from left to right:

Teresa Rodríguez Díaz (director of Culture and Historic Heritage department of Cabildo de la Palma),

and Brita Prinz (Brita Prinz Arte)

from left to right:

Gérard Espí García (second prize Carmen Arozena 2013), Gabriel Trustram (honourable mention),
Teresa Rodríguez Díaz, Brita Prinz, Tomiyuki Sakuta (first prize Carmen Arozena 2013)

 

 Tomiyuki Sakuta (first prize Carmen Arozena 2013) and

Eugènia Agustí (winner of Carmen Arozena 2012 award, member of the 2013 jury) in front of his work

Ciprian Chirileanu and Tomiyuki Sakuta

with Tomiyuki Sakuta 

 with Gérard Espí García and his work

with Gabriel Trustram next to his work

with Ana Morales and Brita Prinz

with my grand-grandfather Haman Dominic and my grandmother Prinz Aurelia, 

finally reunited under much happier circumstances.

(photos: Ciprian Chirileanu)

Canary Islands, March 2005
the starting point of my fascinating journey into the world of visual arts. 

Parallel Moment - tAd Gallery - DENTON/ TEXAS, USA, October - November 2013

"The project calls for artists from around the globe to collaborate in simultaneously capturing a singular temporal moment that connects different time zones in different locales. (…) Within a one-minute duration at specified times, participating artists will capture their unique perspective, interpretation, and experience in either photographs, prints, digital images, videos, sound recordings, drawings, paintings, or mixed media. Individual artist can choose any subject matter, location, or setting. The work can be spontaneous or random, or they can be contrived or pre-staged. The only requirement is that all artists simultaneously capture that distinct moment at that specified time(s). Subsequent editing can be done to enhance yet preserve the interpretation of the work. The size should be 8″ x 10″ x 8″ or smaller. Videos and sound recordings will be contained within one-minute duration." (source: tAd project call)

Participants at the Parallel Moment on August 31st, 2013 - list of locations and local times 

(source: tAd)

This Moment, Forever

Photography/ digital print, 20 x 25 cm, 2013

When my father was 18 years old he made an attempt to escape from communist Romania. He was arrested and sentenced to 4 years hard labor at the so called death camp from the Danube-Black Sea Canal. Many years later, with his health and all hopes for a better future destroyed, he finally managed to emigrate to Canada. He never talked about the past and his last wish was that we spread his ashes in the Pacific Ocean.

It is said that water is eternal. That it has it’s own memory and it carries the thoughts and prayers of all those who have their image reflected in it. I like to think that all the waters of this earth carry my fathers prayers for a better life, my image as a happy child holding his hand, his ashes, the lights and the shadows of each moment, forever.

This work is dedicated to my father and to all those whom we loved and who are no longer with us.

The photos for this work were taken on the Bega Canal in Timisoara/ Romania on August 31st, 2013:

 Making of: on the Bega Canal

More about the event and participating artists: http://www.tadgallery.org/?page_id=409  

Papergirl - CANDAL/ PORTUGAL, September 21st, 2013

Papergirl is a community street art project originating in Berlin in 2006, which is now produced in cities worldwide (Barcelona, New York, Vancouver, Birmingham, Belgrade, Brasov, Bucharest, etc). Artworks sent by artists from all over the world are exhibited, and then, in the style of American paperboys, rolled up and distributed by bicycle in city centers to random passers-by. The project was started as a response to the fact that posting art in public places in Berlin became a criminal offense, similar to spraying graffiti.

In September 2013 it took place for the first time in Portugal, with the support of the cultural organization Experiment Arte. „The basic idea of the project is to bring art to the public in a different way from normal; to surprise people and bring them into contact with art in their everyday life. We will distribute the art rolls in a sunny morning in Lousã and we will exhibit all the art works in the beautiful schist village of Candal.” (source: Experiment Arte - project call)

(photo source: Experiment Arte - FB)

 Roots - From the Series A One Hundred Lives Journey
old family photos/ digital print, 30 x 42 cm, 2013

Pai Nosso (Our Father)

underwater photography/ digital print, 29 x 29 cm, 2013

I love Portugal... My father planned to visit Portugal but he died a short time before the trip. A few months later I decided to make the trip in his place and the beauty of this country helped me overcome the terrible pain of his loss. I created the Pai Nosso works for the Papergirl project as a sign of respect for all the ones we loved and who left this world too soon.

The Cross (3rd edition) - The Golia Monastery- Iasi/ Romania, September - October 2013

The Golia Monastery in Iasi, winner of the European Union Cultural Heritage Prize

(photo source: internet)

Tatăl Nostru (Our Father)

Digital print, 50 x 50 cm, 2013

Tatăl Nostru (Our Father) - detail

International Project of Callygraphy&Art of Penmanship - „Calligraphy&New Medias” - KLAIPEDA/ LITHUANIA, September 2013

Klaipėda has been named for a long time the Lithuanian calligraphy capital. 

The concept of the project relevant to the contemporary world of new media is “calligraphy within the context of new media: relation and discourse”. Rapid evolution of technologies and development of virtual world, globalization and attempt to co-exist in the united cultural space creates circumstances that allow losing fundamental skills of language usage (authentic dictionaries) and traditional handwriting. In other words, we start to converge. Thus, this project seeks to discuss, can calligraphy art and penmanship tradition that existed for ages preserve uniqueness of its expression in environment of virtual space and how the representatives of different countries can remain understandable to each other at the same time?  (source: project call)

Notre Père

underwater photography/ digital print, 50 x 50 cm, 2013

In my family the prayer Notre Père was always recited in French. And it always accompanied each member of my family in the hard years of the communist regime in Romania, when they were separated, deported, condemned to forced labor, dispossessed of all their goods. Praying remained their only refuge and anchor to normality.  
The works for Notre Père have been photographed underwater and then digitally processed. My intention was to create a moving image of the prayer when someone prays with all his heart, the energy flow that comes to life and recreates itself again and again, like in a kaleidoscope.

These works are part of a larger project about the tragic destiny of my family. It is a re-writing of their life to which I have now the freedom and the choice, with the help of my art, to add a happier ending. I send works with their story and their portraits all over the world, making it possible for them to symbolically travel freely. So far works from this project have been presented in Timisoara/ Romania, Rignac/ France, Evora and Coimbra/ Portugal, Madrid/ Spain, and will soon be sent to Umea/ Sweden, Lahti/ Finland and Tallin/ Estonia.