Interview with Mad Scientist Renyn

Renyn: *plays around with the mic while making sheep sounds*
“Baaaa…Baaaaa…Baaaa…”

Q: As I look through your work, I see a very human elem...

Renyn: *keeps making sheep sounds!*
Renyn: Oops sorry, what was the question ?

Q: As I look through YOUR...

Renyn: *removes his head and shines his skull* Dah, im really sorry. I’m trying to look nice for a change. Does a skeleton with a tie look too weird or is it ok?

Q. You look ...amazing... Can we proceed now?!

Renyn: Sure ~

As I look through your work, I see a very human element in many of your compositions. In what way do you use the human being in your work and what do you try to communicate through this?

Well, human faces are one of the most interresting parts of our body to look at, the most expressive. In the past 12-13years or so, i had to work a lot with women in photography for various projects and I keep being amazed at how beautiful and interresting faces can be. The curves, the lines, the little details... I can sit for hours in front of my screen, working on the same model's face just because I enjoy looking a the overall architecture.

Eyes and lips are awesome !

Even if that could explain why I'm using mostly girls in my personnal work, it's not really the reason why I started doing photomanipulation from portrait photos. Many years back, photomanip wasn't a very popular art and most of other artist's work in that style was boring to look at and it all looked the same. Only a few artists were creating brilliant pieces. Something that only a few people were doing, was working from portrait pictures and stepping out from them, so I decided to change that a little.

My goal is not to create art with my personnal work, i am simply trying to provoke reactions in the viewers.

Which brings in a little back story from a exhibition in 2008. On my wall I had my works Red.Life and Light.Life right next to each other. Two old ladies were standing in front of them and all I could hear was them saying how disgusting it was and they couldnt understand how come people can enjoy art like that. 30 minutes later they were still in front of these two prints watching and not talking anymore. They left an hour later and told me that they had a great time. They came back the next day with two more friends and began watching the same two pieces...

God bless the grannies ~

What part has Shadowness and it’s members played in your creative life? How did you find Shadowness and when did you join?

Hmmm...I joined Shadowness like 8-9 years ago. I dont really remember, exactly, it was V3 or something. Back then, there weren't many art communities around and to be honest, I didn't really care about them.
One day, during a website project, a friend showed me some abstract 3D pieces from Shadowness and I decided to take a look and I fell in love with the site. After some time I realised that this website was created by a guy from the city I lived in and from that point, Shadowness became a new home.

Lots of back stories with me and Shadowness, real life and in the website itself. Working at the Shadowness office downtown, playing Quake3 on brake time. (hehe.) Over the years, I found a lot of friends who I keep talking with and having a good time. Even if I keep disapearing from time to time, I always end up coming back around to chat.

*hands over a beer to Dr.Luv*

Friends that I respect a lot and that I am proud to know. It's also a place where I found a couple of artists that I've pretty much grown up with and that I'll respect no matter what. /Ikaruga /Decrepitude /axl99 /Diane /Nekro /AegisStrife and many others. These people have been the reason why I keep doing this today and they keep inspiring me.

Xbabe still haunts my dreams by the way ~

What are your favorite mediums to indulge in? Why did you choose these?

Besides what people might think, I dont only work with photoshop from beginning to end. In my personnal work, and mostly in my professional work, I use a lot of tradional mediums. Charcoal, watercolor, black ink, oil paint and many others. These are mediums that I insert into my work in photoshop, that I modify and use constantly. That explains why I always say that most of work is just photomanip and not 50/50 with painting. Hel.ysia is a pretty good example. Once the model had been cleaned from imperfection and cut from the background... I passed a good 40hrs just using charcoals and watercolor to create photos that i could use on that piece.
I just love traditional mediums. I love the feeling they give when used and I also like the grunge effect you can create with them. Even if I'm a details freak, I will always enjoy the emotion these non-photoshop elements can generate.
I use taditional mediums in everything, graphic design, web design, print design, art etc. and I love to get dirty with charcoal ~

What other hobbies and interests are you currently engaged in?

Ahaha! If you would have asked me 6 months ago, I would have probably said that I have no life and that all I do is work non-stop 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for the past 10 years on various projects.
But, due to some recent health issues, I had to slow down on my actual life style and take care of myself. Soooo, I am currently working as a graphic designer for a company in Montreal and outside of my work time I try to stay away from the keyboard if possible.
The only hobbies that I have are working on my homemade brush and texture database (which is massive) or driving my car in a random direction for hours, or painting.
It's easy to see that I dont really have hobbies in general hehe.

*hands over another beer to Dr.Luv*
...
What you mean dead people cant drink and that I'm wasting booze on the floor ?!

Q. Can we continue ?

Renyn: Sorry...

What mistakes have taught you the most?

Wearing pants when going outside helps a lot if you don't want to get arrested.
Also, i dont really have any mistakes that taught me anything, besides not working 48hr non stop and then send the files to the printer for over 15,000 copies...your work might come out with missing letters and wrong colors.
Other mistakes that I've learned from are pretty much just from the process of becoming a artist/graphic designer. We all make mistakes and yes we learn from them. But these mistakes are pretty much just normal for everyone. It's part of the process.

I did make A LOT of mistakes in 12-13years. But, it's just part of the job. Can't always be perfect and yes, sh*t happens sometimes. I'm a graphic designer mostly, and in all the projects I've done over the years, I've made a lot of mistakes. Some weren't problematic and some others made me lose jobs and projects. When I think about them today, I just have a good laugh now.

And, yes, I already messed up 15,000 24x36" for real ~

What do you feel the most Important technical ability to be for an artist to master?

It depends a lot on what kind of art you are doing or what kind of work. To be really honest, I dont think there's anything technical to master has an artist. What I mean is, whatever what kind of art you will do, as long as you keep working and working over and over you will master it in the end, anyway.

Yes, in every art style there are different techniques and stuff to know, but if you keep doing it, over the years you will tend to learn them no matter what.

Well, to be also a photographer, i must say that photography has a dose of technical abilities that you have to master no matter what to become "better". But photography is just another world in my opinion. An awesome one too, especially black and white. ~

When did you first notice your own style emerging, and where did it eventually take you?

Pretty much when I stopped caring about what people would think of my personal work. When I started doing it only for myself. Which is pretty much when and why I changed my name to Renyn.

From that point, my personnal work has pretty much worked publicity for me and given me alot of freelance projects. Adding that to my graphic design professional job, I had enough work to live decently. Even today, I keep receiving projects and jobs offers. Funny since 12-13 years ago, I didn't want to work in that domain, I wanted to be an architect.

Now im working with half-naked photos of women ~

Wanna see ? :D

Q. No, thank you.

:(

What elements of your back-ground, teachers, influences, have come together to help you come to create the way that you do, or be the person that you are?

I never got to go to school in graphic design or art or whatever. It was pretty much just a hobby at the start.

My grandfather was painting every sunday and from my young age I was sketching random things non-stop during classes. When I was playing around with Photoshop5 it just turned into a drug I had to touch every hour, every day. There was a lot of punk rock bands around the place where I grew up, so I pretty much was doing flyers, stickers, cd covers and websites for all these bands non-stop. That explain also why I have a really grungy/trashy art style, hehe.

A lot of close friends supported me and gave me inspiration over the years. Friends that aren't here anymore today, but even right now keep giving me inspiration and motivation. Dark inspiration, but still, why not. Better than creating beautifull little birds in a sunny background with fluffy clouds and sh*t that doesn't mean anything to me.

No offence to the fluffy clouds, I love them ~

Just got a picture of a skeleton dancing in a green field, blue sky and fluffy clouds. Oh the memories of summer vacations...

Stop laughing DR.Luv !

Q. ...

What is your opinion of the way that online communities influence art?

Online communities only make people create more, I dont think it influence art itself. It just opened an easy access to digital art and made people express themselves in a way most people didn't know about a decade ago. Art is art, no matter what, and like everything else, it has to evolve one day or another. We are currently in the middle of this evolution.
But, it's not communities that influence art its just the artists that create it. Communities are just platforms for these people that change the face of our visual world.

Avocado country or Bat country, hmmm ~

... what you mean we cant stop here ?! Ohh ya right !
Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?!

Do you have any words you’d like to leave the members of Shadowness with?

Keep creating and stop judging yourself. The only person that can stop you from becoming better is YOURSELF. One day you will look back at your old work and realise where you are right now. From that point you will enjoy creating even more.

Turn up some music, sit down and create. Go wild, create gore & disturbing stuff, create fluffy clouds if you want, but create something. God bless Helvetica and Geogrotesque! Fact: Heineken is the best beer! I like cherry gum!

Q. You can stop now

B&W photos are the best! We, skeletons, are the superior race!

Q. ...

‘May’ is a badass movie! Netherlands is the best country! The deads will rule the world!

Q. *grabs mic from renyn hands*

*Throw some bones from his left arm at /HellOnAStick *
Get back here with that! Stop laughing Dr.Luv!

http://www.shadowness.com/renyn

May 25th, 2011