Next Month...

René Guerin

–– In the Name of Art

Opening reception:Saturday, January 4, 4 - 7pm

Exhibition dates:January 4-25, 2014

For the month of January, Arts on Douglas will present In the Name of Art, a solo exhibition featuring paintings and sculptures by Vero Beach artist, René Guerin. The exhibition will be on view from January 4, 2014 through January 25, 2014 with an opening reception on Saturday, January 4 from 4-7 pm. The opening reception and month long exhibition is free and open to the public.

René Guerin’s solo exhibition, In the Name of Art, is reflective of an artist’s ability to visually reinterpret elements from ordinary life in new, meaningful, and imaginative ways. 

Guerin’s paintings are timeless vignettes replete with light and light-hearted figures, objects, and places. "My work is a visual record of how everyday life intersects and merges with the creative process. With this collection, I draw inspiration from the people and places familiar to me, as well as concepts and techniques from art history that interest me,” explains the artist. For Guerin, ordinary life exists poolside, on the beach, at an intimate dinner party, hiking, or in quiet contemplation. By focusing on those elements she is most familiar, Guerin invites viewers into her world, a world where reality and the imagination harmoniously coexist.

Guerin’s painting style engages viewers by calling attention to how the mind processes what it sees. She achieves this by manipulating visual perception and referential expectation through the use of light, color, composition, and energetic brushwork. From afar, a Guerin painting might appear to be a tightly composed representational landscape, but on closer inspection the painting is revealed to be abstract layers of paint applied with quick, successive brush strokes of various weights. 

In addition to paintings, the exhibition includes bisque-fired figurative sculptures imbued with character. Some sculptures have textured surfaces accomplished through scoring, while other sculptures in the collection accentuate form and medium. “In order to keep things lively, I experiment with different media, material, techniques, and processes such as sgraffito, impasto, stains, glazes, dabs and sweeping gestures,” explains Guerin. Like her paintings, Guerin’s sculptures reflect the knowledge, skill, and the passion of an artist driven to create. 

René Guerin received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Florida State University. As a professional artist, Guerin has participated in many solo, juried, and group exhibitions throughout the United States. Guerin’s artwork has been exhibited at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the Florida Gulf Coast Art Center, Vero Beach Museum of Art, Turner Center, and Wesleyan College. Her work is included in the permanent collections of The Center for the Arts in Vero Beach, Florida, the Brevard Art Center and Museum in Melbourne, Florida, and the Morris Museum in August, Georgia.