South Jersey Artist Studio Tour - Chanelle René Interview
Can you tell us about your practice?
René: I’m a figurative painter. I like to work in vibrant colors, a lot of times on canvas. Most recently, I’ve expanded my work to include murals as well. I just like layering, the process, starting with mixed media materials and finishing my pieces in oil when it comes to canvas work. I really love how they turn out.
Can you talk about your art journey?
René: I started creating art about five years ago, prior to that I worked for twenty plus years in marketing and communications so I really just started creating art as a way to just reconnect and disengage with what I was doing. Through the pandemic, it just gave me a lot of time to focus on creating art and in 2021, I started showing my art for the first time publicly. I entered the Ocean City juried show and I won Best of Show so that was my boost of confidence telling myself that I need to keep going and from there I guess I haven't stopped.
When you were younger, were you creative?
René: In some ways, I took a few art classes but it wasn’t anything that Boy! I want to do or I want to pursue this. I was told that I could draw fairly well but again it wasn’t on my radar at all as far as like a career or anything so this is all really new to me.
Can you talk about your installation?
René: We are here at ARTeriors. My installation is called Bitter/Sweet and it is inspired by The James Candy Company where it is located. I kind of knew immediately that that was the direction I wanted to go. And then I just continued to be inspired by all of the found materials in the space. The wallpaper behind me was all done with wrapping paper that was already here. Then I hand wrote the bittersweet in repeat on a lot of the pieces and pinned those on the wall. I knew I wanted to use the baker’s racks to do a cellophane painting so that was really exciting. As you can see, there are portraits kind of playing on that bittersweet. You see a lot of candy pieces but it is also up to the viewer to interpret what bittersweet means to them.
What does bittersweet mean to you?
I think it is about duality and you can’t have one without the other. So you can’t enjoy the sweet because there is always that opposite, of bitter. For me, aesthetically in the space, the sweet is soft and aerial. You can see some of that in the tapestries above and the bitter is bold and expressive. You can see that in the writing and some of the expressions in the portraits. Kind of undone. I wanted the paper on the wall to be intentionally torn and unfinished.
Can you talk about the portraits, how you represent women?
René: A lot of my work is female based portraits. That has always spoke to me as far as my being a self taught artist. I was always drawn to creating portraits and I do a lot of women of color. I want to just represent seeing more of myself in the arts space and also letting them know that they are beautiful and they are meant to be seen and admired. And building that self confidence within as well. I really love capturing that in my work when I can.
When I approach ARTeriors I always see it as a time to play and explore. I haven't really done a lot of what I would call, very expressive. I wanted to be tongue in cheek, a little but on the edge. So I knew I wanted to have eating candy, consuming candy but having it very expressions on their face. Even the ones that aren’t eating candy, you get that full face expression and leave it up to the viewer to interpret what that means to them. Like for me I can look at these pieces, and know what is bitter and sweet but I love when I was talking to people coming through the space their thoughts on the different pieces and kind of what resonated with them as well.
I wanted to be that edge of sexy and flirtatious as well. And wanted to represent the eating of the candy but wanted to also feel that the women were empowered. They are not just objects but they are the ones dictating the narrative that yes, this is me and unapologetically here I am.
Why is art important to you?
René: Art for me is important because it is very meditative. That is how I started my practice as a way to decompress. Also, as someone that struggles with anxiety it was a way that I can not focus on that and just kind of crate. I might get caught up in the perfectionism of it but at the end of the day, it ultimately allows me to release and get into the flow of creating. It is definitely a part of my personal practice and that’s why it is really important. I also feel that the work I create has an impact on the people. Whether they purchase a piece or see a piece, they are connected. It has a ripple effect.
The chairs in the installation. They were found. Being in past ARTeriors, I knew I wanted to have seating for people to kind of sit in the space and take it in. I didn’t just want to use the chairs so they've been spray painted black and then I thought, I wanted to give them volume and presence. For me, I think of a grand chair, as a peacock chair. Since they were wicker, so I wanted to create that grandness of a peacock chair with a little nod to feathers but they are actually pampas grass that I sprayed black and applied them to the chair. So I just wanted to elevate the chairs coming from the space but also bring them in allowing folks to have a seat, take a look and take it all in.
The portrait series, Bitter/Sweet, I used found baking sheets in the space. I later found out that they were used to bake macaroons during the opening so that was kind of interesting because I think about the candy store as salt water taffy and fudge. But I was like, what do they bake here? So that was a kind of fun fact to figure out. I knew that when I found the pans, they were going to be paintings. They made the perfect canvases so I first scrubbed them really good.
René: The cellophane paintings that are in the installation is all about bringing the installation out from the wall and bringing it into the space. I thought that these really help with that. The baker’s racks were found in the space. I actually always wanted to do these cellophane wraps as I’ve been getting more into painting fully with spray paint. I’ve been painting outside a lot. I’ve seen this technique a lot of painting on cellophane and as soon as I saw these racks, I was like, I’m going to do that. And again, it is like that duality, this one here is I’m considering the bitter and the one behind me is the sweet. It was interesting so the references for these I could see the front and back, which was kind of cool, so when you look at the piece in the front is the front and the back, even though the head is turned, that represents the back of the model. I just thought that was a really cool play.
Also the idea that using the cellophane that you could see through and let light through. When the install is up, there’s party lights and LED lights and I just thought that it was a really cool experience. Also working with spray paint, it’s a different way of building up layers but at the same time again being able to see through you can see the different layers of color kind of stacked one another. I look forward to doing more of this type of work, like creating full portraits or full figures in spray paint which I think is really cool.
South Jersey Artist Studio Tour (SJAST) is a pilot project created by the South Jersey Cultural Alliance and funded by the Humanities Lab Project through the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. The South Jersey Cultural Alliance would like to thank the artist, Chanelle René.
