NELSON MANDELA

"If people think they are in front of a picture ... I won. "

RENAR was born in 1987 in Tours. Attracted from the beginning by the drawing, it is towards this matter that he was oriented for his studies. After graduating as a graphic designer in 2010, he and other students in his class formed a collective of artists and made various advertising and artistic projects.

But the professional graphics industry is boring because he was not able to give free rein to his creativity. To get out of his work routine, RENAR begins to paint portraits in black acrylic on Canson sheets.

As and when creations, RENAR develops an atypical and personal technique that will become his signature. He uses worn brushes to apply the paint "accidentally" to the sheet, as well as a knife blade to scrape the acrylic and create more detail and material. He found this technique by chance, without looking for it, practicing, testing and this is the real strength of his portraits.

His goal is to tend towards a photographic realism in black and white, while preserving the raw aspect of his painting technique. Over the years, this technique has been refined, allowing him to make many portraits that he considers as tributes to the personalities who influenced him. RENAR draws its inspiration from many fields: cinema, sport, music and even politics.