Renee Parnell – Curtin Fine Arts Artist in Residence
Renee has had an interdisciplinary creative career, working across architecture, education, public art, digital illustration and projection, virtual reality modelling, intercultural research and community development, community collaborative installations, printmaking, ceramics and exhibition curation. This eclectic mix is because she finds everything interesting and loves to build relationships, to connect people and link skill sets across disciplines. Her work encompasses the technical precision of printmaking processes, innovative low-tech ‘work arounds’ in remote locations, through to the incorporation of contemporary digital technologies. All of which informs her diverse creative practice (W)renscape.
Renee has been living in and around Victoria Park for a couple of decades now, co-facilitating the Vic Park Printmakers, and establishing the Vic Park Creatives, a consort of local practicing artists. She moved to Perth to study at Curtin but is originally from Broomehill in the Great Southern. The experience of growing up remotely, surrounded by nature, continues to inform the themes within her practice and her value of community. Many of Renee’s works, both for exhibition or commission, are hyper-local, focusing on environmental concepts and observing natural elements often overlooked or under-valued within the urban context, and more broadly across the state. Her architectural training accentuates the geometry and symmetries inherent in our West Australian plants in a graphic style now synonymous with Renee’s work.
This year Renee instigated and curated the Future is Now: Vic Park Youth Art Awards as an expression of her passion for engaging the broader community in the joys of creating, and to make art and local artists more visible to young creatives. She has just returned from Mongolia, completing further creative community development projects in partnership with Curtin’s School of Design and the Built Environment, and is about to commence another public art commission before taking up a six-week instalment as Victoria Parks inaugural artist in residence. She is looking forward to using this opportunity to develop and prototype some new ideas, something she is never short of! Renee’s bespoke product range of WA botanical inspired sustainable gifts and homewares can be found in select gallery and giftware stores around WA, or wholesale direct. You can follow her practice on Instagram or Facebook @wrenscape
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