ALEX RENBARGER THE ARTIST

Artist Statement

I paint interior and exterior spaces with muted and minimal color palettes. My paintings start out from photographs of man-made subjects in my daily life with inorganic lines and strong sources of light. I enjoy simplifying and exaggerating different aspects in the work such as the colors, the subject, and the lighting. My lighting references Edward Hopper’s work as well as the idea of how isolation is depicted and can be read as either comforting or lonely. I also play with impasto and contrasting thickly placed paint in areas and smooth blends throughout the paintings. I employ contrasting marks such as precise lines and fully blended areas with thicker, more obvious brushstrokes like Berthe Morisot’s work. Using the alla prima method with french ultramarine mixed with permanent alizarin for the shadows creates momentary blends which stand out to me as the idea of time and it’s constant, unrelenting nature. 

The relentlessness of time opens up the conversation of the passage of mundane life. The echo of genre scenes in my work opens up a connection with everyday life. The daily struggle of mental health, not as some romanticised idea, but of an endless fight with emptiness in the ordinary. While emptiness is often seen as something “less than” or lonely, for many who cope with mental illness, including myself, the tranquility of solitude can actually be a prison or a haven.

Even if only for one single moment, my paintings express acceptance of the mundane and the waves of struggle mental illness bring to the smallest of places. The content of my work focuses on sadness and peace, finding comfort in small moments, and spaces that are quiet or solitary. These notions have been with me all my life, following my mental health journey, and providing comfort. Now, in the course of a global pandemic, more people’s thoughts and hearts have turned toward mental health and how it fills the quiet of our lives. The tenderness I have seen in these straight lines, forgotten spaces, and quiet corners, is being noticed by others. This is a time where people are looking to find peace where they can. My most recent work specifically revolves around paintings about painting and the inclusion of something intimate and safe with the viewers in a time where so much is chaotic.

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Artist Bio

Alex Renbarger is an oil painter who focuses on interior and exterior spaces to discuss the mundane and mental health. She is about to graduate from Texas State University in San Marcos TX with her BFA in studio art and a minor in communication studies. By then, she will have shown her work in the Slice of Home Exhibition online, at the Exit Exhibition and the Hallway exhibition in San Marcos, TX, and the Unknown exhibition with Spellerberg Projects and ICOSA in Lockhart, TX. She also interned with Spellerberg Projects and ICOSA from 2021-2022.