Oil Painting by Angie Renfro - 'Learning As We Go'
I met this artist, Angie, when she shared a work space with a band I played with. We had a practice space at the front of a large warehouse/garage, and she had an artist's studio at the back. She later moved out of that space, but into the same space where my friend Dan (featured earlier) has his space, so I met her again. We're friendly and once I even attended a house warming for her. About a year ago, she was about to move to Seattle when she met a man and decided to stay in Chicago. I haven't seen much of her lately.
Angie does works in series. They all have the same feel and color palette (that copper-oxidized green background never goes away), but there will be subtle variations. When I met her, she was doing weeds and bugs - under-appreciated parts of our landscape. She had a lot of thistle flowers and bees. She also had a series of industrial landscapes and paintings of one or two birds on power lines. After that, she started doing ships for a little bit, and then, most recently, I've seen plants with roots (as in, torn out of the ground), and abstracted shapes, kind of like ice cubes floating.
I used to go to all the art openings and open studio shows. Not all, I guess, but a lot. Once, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a painting by Angie, because she said, "Eh, if I don't sell this one, I'm going to just sand it down." Legit, but no. I bought it and hung it in my bedroom. It's probably 9x9 inches square. So, even though Angie has work in galleries all over the country and I can't afford anything she makes anymore, I have one of her "Weeds" series paintings. The one pictured here isn't it, but it's similar. I really want a "Bees" painting now that I have bees.
Artist's website: http://www.angierenfro.com/