We recently connected with Ren Anan and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Ren thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I had a late start in art, and even later in fine arts. It all started when I dropped out of engineering school in Brazil and I was completely lost about what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be in life. I was 18 and I decided to take some drawing and painting classes in a local art school, nothing serious or with too much commitment. That’s when I first fell in love with art.

My next step was to enroll in an actual art college in the US because I couldn’t find any in Brazil that met what I wanted to learn. So, I applied and was accepted into Ringling College of Art & Design’s Computer Animation program. After the first year, I realized animation wasn’t what I wanted to spend my valuable time doing in life. That’s when I switched to Fine Arts, it felt like a bold choice as I didn’t really understand back then what fine arts even entangled and meant, but it just felt like the right decision, the only decision. It took me another two years, a lot of research, and the introspection of COVID-19 to get used to my new “profession” and to realize that my new goal was to become a successful fine artist and sculptor.

For the past five years, I have been embarked on this journey of self-discovery while learning primarily sculptural craft techniques such as welding, foundry, blacksmithing, wood fabrication, carving, lathing, digital fabrication, ceramics, mold-making and casting, glassblowing, printmaking, etching, and so on. I consider myself a multimedia artist and I take learning the craft and each technique extremely seriously. I’m utterly obsessed and hungry to learn any new skills that will add to my personal range of knowledge. With each new skill acquired and every innovative approach explored, I embrace the belief that continuous learning and evolution serve as the cornerstone of my growth as an artist and sculptor. Each medium I embrace adds a layer to my artistic narrative, each technique contributes to my creative palette.

Currently, I have three preferred media: Metal, Wood, and Digital Fabrication. Media choice is very important to my artistic practice. I explore and mix different media in my artwork blending traditional craftsmanship with modern techniques to create innovative and unexpected outcomes. This invites the viewer to recognize the process and appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into my work.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a fine artist, and I was born in Brazil but I currently live in the US. I moved here to pursue my Bachelor’s degree and graduated in May 2023. As a multimedia artist, my practice encompasses a wide range of media, including wood and metal sculpture, ceramics, digital fabrication, glassblowing, and printmaking. My artwork addresses themes of personal experience and identity, specifically my cultural and racial background, the dualities of multiculturalism, psychology, and the subconscious.

My art reflects my mixed-race Brazilian, Japanese, and European heritage. Art is a way for me to explore and understand my diverse but complicated identity and the unique perspectives that come with growing up and living at such intersections. On top of that, I want my work to serve as a reminder of the richness of each culture and the importance of learning about those who came before us in order to preserve and recognize our roots, traditions, and collective heritage. As most of my racial ancestry is Japanese, traditional Japanese iconography strongly influences my artwork.

My sculptures also abstract the human figures to reflect upon the human condition and psyche itself. I abstract the figures’ shapes and forms into distressing and distorted poses, which convey emotions such as agony, despair, anguish, and sorrow. The absence of color adds to the haunting and unsettling effect, however, I also want them to be enigmatically beautiful and visually compelling.

As of right now, I am an individual artist who’s developing his craft, learning, and putting in the time to study new techniques and enhance the skills I already have. My goal is to one day start my own business and have my artist brand through which I would sell my original pieces and their reproductions. The way I set it this way of thinking is what sets me aside in my field, as I am extremely passionate about the art I create, therefore I want to develop a way for it to fund and subsidize itself.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Looking back on my past I have always wanted to create, only that for the most part I did not know that what I created could be art. After I started creating artwork after artwork, the feeling that comes with the creative journey before you complete the piece, and the accomplishment feeling after you finally finish are both equally rewarding. They fulfill your soul as a human being and even make you positively addicted, that’s why after one decides to become an artist it is thankfully hard to stop. For me, the art I create are objects that represent the physical and visual representational of a very specific meaning I had to dive deep into myself to retrieve. Each one of my pieces has its own story and they all make me very proud that I was able to turn those personal narratives into reality, into something other people can look at and contemplate.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

What illustrates my resilience the most is the biggest challenge I have faced since I decided to primarily be a sculptor as a multimedia artist. Sculpture demands studio space and specific equipment to be created, and we all know that costs a lot of money. I am still a young artist who recently graduated and is early in his professional career, so I don’t yet have the required financial resources to afford my own studio and tools. Therefore, I always need to find external places such as residencies, companies, makerspaces, fab-labs, and institutions in general which will provide me with what I require to create my art at a fixed monthly rate and limited access. This challenge always tests my resilience and requires me to keep my goal in mind so I can always remind myself that I’m doing it all for who I want to be (a successful artist whose art funds itself), and what I want to create (original and intricately crafted artwork).

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ranan2.wixsite.com/altern
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ren_ascense/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/renan-anan-03413b192/
• Other: Email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Ren Anan