My paintings romanticize the coincidences of encountering a bug, making new friends, and inventorying personal data into a symbolic alphabet.
They are inspired by colors of modern cosmetics, alternate reality from sci-fi, American cults, and The Sims. The work synthesizes content into beds of plants, characters and map-like landscapes. The abstractions investigate subjectivity and communication in between spaces of media and language. Using tertiary colors provocative of queerness, the paintings showcase everyday icons through an androgynous lens.
I'm curious how ideas, language, emotion, and change are processed internally and what that looks like. I'm interested in the nuances of subjectivity in our existence through memory, photos, dreams, and history. I wonder how these means of existing overlap and digress from one another; the paintings exploit the thresholds, errors, and edits created within these relationships. I want to investigate how language is translated through the iconography of a culture or community. I'm intrigued by how hybridity informs queerness, and wonder how queerness can deconstruct language, ideas, and systems.
Renée Silva, visual artist & educator, Boston MA
education
2022 Framingham State University, Masters of Education in Art, Framingham MA
2016 Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Bachelor of Art in Painting, Departmental Honors, Boston MA
exhibitions & projects
Curatorial Project*
2021 Women in Abstraction, New Art Center, Newton MA
Women in Abstraction, Virtual Gallery
Some Assembly Required via Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance, Distillery Gallery, Boston MA
Blingee Fairy Fields, Loading Festival, Downtown Miami FL
2019 The Illusion Layer, Boston CyberArts, Jamaica Plain MA
Bold Illusions: Alexandra Rozenman and Renee Silva, Hynes Convention Center, Boston MA
Free Form, LGBTQIA Artist Alliance, Gallery 263, Cambridge MA
Boston Key Party, Stove Gallery, Charlestown MA
Sectional, Dorchester Art Project, Dorchester MA*
2018 Art on the Marquee: Video Wall via Boston Cyberarts, Boston Convention Center, Boston MA
Matter of Intention, Crossings Gallery @ Harvard Ed Portal, Allston MA
Secret Gardens, Nave Gallery, Somerville MA
Who Needs People When You Can Love Things, Craft & Caro, Boston Design Building, Boston MA*
2017 Crosscurrents, Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia PA
Rose Ceremony, Casablanc, Roxbury MA*
Hydra via Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance, Midway Gallery, Boston MA
Coded via Boston LGBTQIA Artist Alliance, Vandernoot Gallery, Cambridge MA
Emotional Currency in the Digital Age, Godine Gallery Boston MA
In Response, Godine Gallery, Boston MA
2016 A Group Show, Thomas Young Gallery, Boston MA
A House Show, Ratsnest, Allston MA
A conclusion, Godine Gallery, Boston MA*
Into it, over it, Student Life Gallery, Boston MA*
Float dreams = 4D*cosradiansflower+sky; Godine Gallery, Boston MA*
Tombstone (in case you never knew me) Godine Gallery, Boston MA*
Painting All School Show, Doran Gallery, Boston, MA
2015 ^to Interpretation, Student Life Gallery, Boston MA
SIM BIG, Godine Gallery, Boston MA
(SIM) Artists Making Art About Artists, Godine Gallery, Boston MA*
Though detached, we are close; Visual Studies of Scopaesthesia , Godine Gallery, Boston MA
Carnage, SkyCastle, Roxbury, MA*
Violence Transformed, Roxbury Community College, Roxbury, MA
Painting All School Show, President's Gallery, Boston, MA
Converging Lines, Student Life Gallery, Boston, MA
2014 The Empathic State, North Crackatorium, Boston, MA*
FA-2D Open House Pop-Up Show, Kennedy Building MassArt, Boston, MA
The Restore Show, North Crackatorium, Boston MA
awards
2016 Dean Nimmer Auction Award, MassArt
MassArt Merit Award, MassArt
2015 Gamlbin Paint Supply, MassArt
2013 Van Gogh Vision Award, North Reading High School
publications
2019 Art, Went there: Sectional @ Dorchester Art Project, Boston Hassle
2018 Art, Went there: Matter of Intention at the Harvard Ed Portal, Boston Hassle
Art, Chosen Shows, POP-UP SHOP: WHO NEEDS PEOPLE WHEN YOU CAN LOVE THINGS – CLOTHING RELEASE, Boston Compass
2017 Review: Art Edition, Boston Compass
Casablanc Market, Boston Magazine
A Self-conscious Cube, Godine Family Gallery Catalog 2015-2016, Blurb Publishing
2016 FA-2D Senior Catalog, Massachusetts College of Art and Design
teaching experience
2021-Current Art Instructor, Phillips Academy, Andover MA
2020-2021. K-8 Art Teacher, Brookline Public Schools, Brookline MA
2016- Current Art Instructor in Youth Programs, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston MA
