ARTIST'S STATEMENT My photos are most often about the kind of world I want to live in. Photography gives me a way to connect to this world - a world with quiet places of beauty, places of wonder, places that make me want to drink them in deeply - and to share them with others. I’m in love with the natural world, with the diversity in all its forms of life (both plants and animals), and with all the real people and real shapes within it. I’m fascinated by the emotional range of the human temperament, and by finding it’s reflections in the poses and expressions that people take on naturally. |
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After getting a B.A. in Biology, I joined the Peace Corps and lived in Guatemala for a while, where I fell in love with travel as well. I took photos all the time and became fascinated with the variety of human culture, but then had a very bad accident. It was during the time of surgeries and learning to live with pain and physical limitations that I discovered my art. Making art is an amazing process, hard to understand or really describe. There are lots techniques to learn, lots of processes to figure out, and lots of studies to be made, but in the end I find that all that stuff only helps one to give the art a voice that is recognizable by others. The art itself comes from somewhere within and can scarcely be shaped or planned in a fully conscious manner. Ruth Bernhard has been one of my strongest influences, and I’ve been particularly affected by the theme of one of her books, The Gift of the Commonplace. In her work this often refers to commonplace objects, and in the workshop I took with her she challenged us to find something beautiful to photograph within a limited number of feet of our meeting room. I love working this way, and I love to take this same approach with photographing the human body. Like many feminists who came of age in the 1970's, I came into photography with my own biases about nude photography, and from the beginning I wanted to pursue work that affirmed the beauty of ordinary human bodies, rather than contribute to a process that would further the insecurities the average woman has about her own body. Perfect bodies are beautiful, and they are lovely to photograph, but when I can find expressions of extraordinary beauty in a completely real-world body is when I feel that I am doing my best and most significant work. I’ve studied photography, painting and printmaking with David Bayles, Ruth Bernhard, Lucien Clergue, Steve Kiser, Alan May, Ted Orland, Holly Roberts and Brian Taylor, in private workshops, at UC Santa Cruz Extension, the Pacific Art League, and at Foothill College. I've taught workshops for UC Santa Cruz Extension, St. Mary's Art Center and privately. I've been exhibiting my work since 1994, on the web and in galleries, and it has been included in many private collections. I'm currently living in Los Gatos, California (about 25 miles south of San Francisco), with my husband, Steve Fend (a USGS stream ecologist). I'm represented by The Main Gallery in Redwood City, and I exhibit my work in other places when the opportunity presents itself. If you would like to be notified when I update my website or have a show coming up, sign up on my mailing list! Saelon Renkes |
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