Patrick Renner: Bounty

February 01 - March 31,2020

"It’s an age-old adage: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. At some point this became the guiding principle of my art practice, coupled with the optimistic outlook from a titular Calvin & Hobbes volume: There’s Treasure Everywhere!

Initially, out of necessity as a high school art student with extremely modest means, I took notice of the abundance of (free!) architectural refuse that showed up at regular intervals in random places on Houston roadsides. My first foray into the trash pile treasure pile was epiphinal, and I was hooked. Even now, after more than 20 years of sifting through mountains of detritus, I still find my head turning unconsciously as I drive past a promising pile of pre-art. The urge to glean these carelessly discarded gems from heaps of rubble is nearly insatiable. Each painted board is embedded with a story of its existence, albeit unknown to me, and no two are the same. Like a boundless flurry of snowflakes, they just keep coming, endlessly. I’m mesmerized by the residue of weathering and human contact that connects me, tenuously, to a sea of anonymous people and their fascinating, unknowable existences.

The exhibition BOUNTY explores the wonderful possibilities of this resuscitated material, in a few selected approaches. Refuse as a vehicle for memory is a way of exploring the human condition; my mania for accumulating building materials parallels the universal trajectory of experiential aggregation over the course of a lifetime. Having amassed a vast fortune in this cryptocurrency, I am slowly reinvesting it in new, Frankensteined forms made available for public consumption."

Opening: February 01, 2020 | 6-9 pm

Redbud Arts Center 303 East 11th Street
Houston, TX 77008
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