Artist Profile: Renee de Saxe
Renee de Saxe is inspired by her relationships with others, her daughters, family and community and their sense of place and her figurative images are a vehicle to communicate the complexities of these interpersonal relationships within their environment.
Renee’s intention is to urge the viewer to find, recognise and acknowledge their own emotions and explore the themes of childlike innocence, vulnerability and fragility, concentrating on tone and light, using gestural marks to create movement and emotion.
Starting with a personal image or memory, Renee creates a series of charcoal drawings, creating tone, light and movement. Her next step is to digitally manipulate the image before finally creating a cyanotype. The artwork is captured through sunlight and emerges out of a watery bath. Although repeatable, Renee uses cyanotype as a product of experimentation, the image will always emerge differently depending on the subtleties of the process. Since moving to the Barossa in 2016, Renee has been an active arts advocate in the region, instrumental in imagining and launching several major art initiatives, including Wanderlust Greenock and 100 Barossa Artists. Renee is the winner of the Barossa Regional Gallery Vintage Festival Art Prize 2021 and in 2022 she held her first major solo exhibition at the Barossa Regional Gallery. She also launched Wonderground, an independent, immersive space in the Barossa co-founded with artist Kirsty Kingsley, set to redefine the purpose of galleries.
