#Renée Stout

[beautiful-contrast]

Erzulie's Mirror (The Crying Mirror) by Renée Stout

[abwwia]

Renée Stout (Born in 1958)

A 1980 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, her career began with photo-realist paintings of everyday urban neighborhoods. Soon, she developed mystical interests, delving into ancient African traditions, magic, and her vivid imagination. Her fascination with fortunetellers and the healing power of Voodoo priests was on display in her 1993 exhibition at the National Museum of African Art, where Stout’s fetishistic pieces were presented alongside Kongo carvings, believed to have healing powers. source & MORE

[syntesthetic]

[longlistshort]

Renée Stout’s exhibition at Marc Straus in NYC, Navigating the Abyss, presents a collection of her recent work in various mediums. From sculpture and painting to photography, her skillful and inventive work draws you in.

From the press release-

Starting out as a photo-realist painter depicting life in everyday urban neighborhoods, Stout soon developed an interest in the mystical and spiritual traditions in African American communities. Fascinated with fortunetelling and the healing power of Hoodoo, Vodou and Santeria still practiced within the African Diaspora in the American Southeast and Caribbean, she delved into ancient spiritual traditions and belief systems. She has drawn inspiration from a wide variety of sources such as current social and political events, Western art history, the culture of African Diaspora, and daily city life. While her artistic practice is rich with references and resonances, her works are eventually unique manifestations of her own imagination, populated by mysterious narratives and imagined characters derived from the artist’s alter ego.

In this exhibition, we encounter a group of portraits depicting Hoodoo Assassins and Agents (#213 and #214) who, in Stout’s imagination, are healers, seers, and empaths from a Parallel Universe in which fairness and balance rules. Erzulie Yeux Rouge (Red Eyes) is a spirit from the Haitian Pantheon of spirits whose empathic nature makes her a fierce guardian or protector of women, children, and betrayed lovers. Ikengas, originating in the Igbo culture of Southeastern Nigeria, are shrine figures that are meant to store the owner’s chi (personal god), his ndichie (ancestors) and his ike (power), and are generally associated with men. Stout’s Ikenga (If You Come for the Queen, You Better Not Miss) is a powerful female figure with her breasts and horns turned into weapons, and she is adorned with jewels and charms to boost her powers. Beyond the playful yet powerful imagination of these female characters are serious undertones of political commentary as Stout ponders the concepts of these deities while witnessing the recent rulings in our society that infringe on women’s rights.

In Escape Plan D (With Hi John Root, Connecting the Dots) Stout maps out her potential escape to the Parallel Universe when the daily news weighs unbearably on her psyche.

Visions of the Fall, in Thumbnails is a series of five small paintings that comments on the current state of our world and its imagined future with the titles as upcoming stages of its evolution.

American Memory Jar is an entirely black sculpture consisting of a glass jar covered with thin-set mortar, plastic and metal toy guns, topped with a doll head and adorned with a bead and rhinestone cross pendant. Memory Jugs are an American folk-art form that memorializes the dead adorned with objects associated with the deceased. Stout’s jar is a bitter but painfully accurate assessment.

While Stout’s work alludes to history, racial stereotyping, societal decay, and a set of alarming tendencies in our socio-political structures and ecosystem, it also reveals possibilities and the promise of healing. Various works reference healing herbs, potions, and dreams. Herb List, Spell Diagram and The Magic I Manifest speak of Stout’s belief in the power of consciousness, in the existence of more solid and fertile grounds, and of individual responsibility.

There is one overarching narrative that clearly emerges from Stout’s work – her personal history and spiritual journey as a woman and as an artist.

This exhibition closes 3/5/23.

[ortut]

Renée Stout - Erzulie's Mirror (The Crying Mirror), 2013

[worldsandemanations]

Renée Stout - Erzulie’s Mirror (The Crying Mirror), 2013

[paddedlittleparadise]

Renée's Absolutely Awful Summer (Patreon/Ream Tier 2 Teaser)

Hey, all! So I don't normally post teasers from the exclusive tier-2 content on my Patreon and Ream, but this one's an exception. Why not take a peek and see what horrible and totally realistic things have been happening to our adorable protagonist?

For the record, this multi-chapter story is meant as a satire on a particular kind of AB/DL story – not of any particular author! It's all meant in good fun :-)

–––

When Renée woke that Saturday morning in late May, she had no idea that it was going to be the first day of a very, very crazy summer.

"Wha-a?" She sat up in bed, blinking down in confusion at the strange sensation around her bottom. If she was any other young woman, she might have pulled back the covers to investigate what horrible, shameful secret might be there. But she wasn't just any other young woman – oh, no. She had already realized that she was the protagonist in a kinky AB/DL story… and that meant she had to stop everything. Blink meekly into the middle distance, as if into the hungry eyes of the readers. And wait for the omniscient narrator to explain exactly what an adorable, lust-worthy character she was.

You see (the omniscient narrator announced, in the most lovely, rumbly narrator voice imaginable) Renée was twenty-one years old and definitely, totally, legally an adult. This was absolutely true, despite the odd genetic tendencies that had stunted her growth and made her look no more than a mere sixteen. She had shoulder-length brown hair and brown bangs and brown eyes – and freckles, too, for good measure. Her bra size was 32A, her weight 111.5 pounds, her height four feet eleven inches, her shoe size 6W, her glasses prescription -3.00 -3.75, and her blood type A-positive. Her middle name was Dawn, her favorite color was lavender, the name of her favorite teacher was Ms. Stapleton, and the name of her first pet was Hank (the hamster). She was-

The narrator paused, realizing belatedly that he might have given too much information too quickly. Ahem, he announced, a trifle apologetically. That is to say, Renée was a super cute and super lust-worthy AB/DL protagonist. She was very short, you see, and her chest was flat as a teenage boy's. Oh, see those freckles? And those bangs? And did I mention how short she was? Again, totally legal and totally an adult! But yeah, she was pretty freaking ador-

Renée impatiently pulled back the covers at last, and the narrator mercifully shut up. But oh, the horror! For what was she looking at with those cute, wide brown eyes of her? Not just the faded fabric of her favorite pajama bottoms. Not even Jerry, the tattered stuffed iguana that she slept with every night, now lying flat on his back like roadkill. Oh, no. It was a

GIANT WET PATCH IN HER BED!!!

"Oh my gawd!" shrieked her mother, who had suddenly and illogically appeared in her room. "My big adult dawta just peed her bed! Whaddya hafta say for yourself, girl? Huh? HUH? You think it's funny, laying there and peeing yourself? I didn't think you was a frickin' baby no more, you know!"

The narrator began to interject with exposition – explaining something about how Renée's nameless mother was a stout, domineering, no-nonsense sort of parent – but his voice was drowned out as Renée's adorable little face crumpled immediately down into pathetic little wails. "I- I'm sorryy, Mom," she pleaded, blinking in chagrin down at the GIANT WET PATCH she was sitting in. "I didn't- I never-! I- hic! I never wet the bed be- hic! fore! Not even last semest- hic! -err…"

In case it wasn't obvious, Renée got the hiccups every time she was upset.

"Oh, be quiet!" Having put up with them for twenty-one years, her mother apparently found her daughter's hiccups anything but endearing. "Listen: I haven't the slightest reason why you might have developed a case of nocturnal enuresis during the last twenty-four hours. However, since I am stout, domineering, no-nonsense sort of parent, I have no intention of demonstrating paternal affection or ensuring that you receive proper medical attention. On the contrary, I firmly believe that my best course of action at this juncture will be to administer a painful, hopelessly outdated form of corporal punishment on a sensitive yet durable portion of your anatomy…"

–––

Oh, no! Whatever will happen to that cute protagonist's sensitive yet durable bottom?

If you want to find out more, why not check it – and lots of other stories – out over on Tier 2 of my Patreon or Ream?

[milksockets]

detail of 'the rootworker's worktable' by renée stout, 2011 in supernatural america: the paranormal in american art - robert cozzolino (2021)

[greek-museums]

I went to the National Sculpture Gallery yesterday, here's some highlights.

The spirit of Copernicus (1877), by Georgios Vroutos.

Satyr playing with Eros (1877), by Yannoulis Halepas.

Nana (1896-1897), by Georgios Bonanos - inspired by the heroine of Émile Zola's Nana.

Centaur (1901), by Thomas Thomopoulos, who is also featured here on this blog, with a stunning sculpture of a broken angel at the cemetery of Anastasi.

Stout seated woman (1948), by Michael Tombros.

The Eraser (1980), by Gabriela Simossi.

The hunter (from the series States of Mind, 2002), by Pantelis Chandris.

And a sculpture by René Magritte, The Therapeutist (Healer) (1967, a gift by Alexandros Iolas, a known art collector and artist promoter of the Greek world.

[onpyre]

I'm doing my annual black history month celebration, which is to highlight a black artist daily

I will usually try to find an image or summary of the artist, and post at least 3 of their pieces throughout the day. This pinned post will be updated daily with a link to the artist's tag:

Philemona Williamson

Troy Michie

Naudline Pierre

Jordan Casteel

Chris Ofili

Simone Leigh

Kehinde Wiley

Janiva Ellis

Belkis Ayón

David Hammons

Alison Saar

Diedrick Brackens

Kara Walker

Carrie Mae Weems

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Bill Traylor

Ming Smith

Tau Lewis

Kerry James Marshall

Doreen Garner

Charles Alston

Renée Stout

Gwendolyn Knight

Juliana Huxtable

Wangechi Mutu

Lorna Simpson

Glenn Ligon

Mosie Romney

Betye Saar

[la-muse-noire]

Renée Stout, Untitled (Pittsburgh), 1983

[kolajmag]

COLLAGE ON VIEW

Bodies of Work: Art & Healing

at the Sun Valley Museum of Art in Ketchum, Idaho, USA through 23 March 2024. “Bodies of Work: Art & Healing” is a group exhibition featuring artwork by six contemporary artists who used their artistic practice as a way of exploring and processing their own experience of medical illness and the experiences of others. Working in a range of media and from widely varying points of view and experiences, these artists have made art as part of their own healing and to enable the healing of others. Artists in the exhibition are Dylan Mortimer, Estelle L. Roberge, Katherine Shaughnessy, Katherine Sherwood, Renée Stout, and Heather Watkins. Read More

*****************************

Kolaj Magazine, a full color, print magazine, exists to show how the world of collage is rich, layered, and thick with complexity. By remixing history and culture, collage artists forge new thinking. To understand collage is to reshape one's thinking of art history and redefine the canon of visual culture that informs the present.

SUBSCRIBE | CURRENT ISSUE | GET A COPY

SIGN UP TO GET EMAILS

[rubin-therubix-loverofblorbos]

This is an excerpt from my René And Gaston fic and I'm sad about it

The bed with the wooden frame creaked under the weight of two old men. It was not big, but it was enough. As so was the room, and as so was the rickey wooden house on the coast. Despite this, cold waves sang their lullaby as they caressed the shoreline again and again, over and over. Until either the ocean has dried, the shoreline has sunken, or the pale has taken it all away. And despite this, enough warmth emitted from the two men's lungs to heat a castle and then some.

Gaston had succeeded in getting his hands under Renè's shirt. The taller of the two had tried to swat the other's hand away but relinquished to the comfort his touch entailed. Curious hands planted themselves on the veteran's sides, thumbs mindlessly tracing the jagged twin scars under his chest, a sweet yet sleepy smile on his face. Gaston could love on any of the hundreds of other scars that litter the captain's body, but he chooses to praise the ones that bring his beloved the most joy. Renè's icy blue eyes melted with the Revacholian snow at the sensation, the statue of a man reverting back into clay for these rare moments and these rare moments only.

A stout brown spider on the wall crawled with the thin black cephalothorax of its long-dead lover in its pedipalps. It can't let go, for they had been together most of their lives. The thin black spider has been lifeless since it returned, eaten from the inside out and controlled by a fungus that made it aggressive and irritable. Before it left, the thin black spider was the second nicest spider the stout brown one had known. That spider is gone now. Only a torn portion of the exoskeleton and motionless dorsal vessel remains. That is all the stout brown spider has to hold onto anymore. That is all the stout brown spider can hold onto. By carrying this relic of the past, the stout brown spider has infected itself with the fungus which killed its beloved. They themself will die soon, all because they refused to let go. The heart of the thin black spider will someday soon float away in the wind while the stout brown spider is asleep and when it awakens, it will die of heartbreak, of grief. This is certain.

[notchainedtotrauma]

I wrote a patrons-only song analysis a month ago, in which I broke down what I felt were the stories curling through the song Nothing 2 Lose by Kari Faux from Lost En Los Angeles, but also its strange handolding of Maria Wyeth.

Keke Palmer by Lula Hyers

Renée Stout, Tiny Pharmacy for Chasing the Blues

The photograph and work of art above best visually describe the song analysis. Here are some excerpts to whet your appetite:

Kari Faux drowns through the song, the affect flat, a watery boderom that can barely being lifted by unending cruising and some drugs. Insofar as pain goes, Kari Faux sleepwalks through trauma, alcohol coating her tongue, confusedly aware of the repetitivity of antiblack slaughter and the frittering of both the physical core and margins of the world. Even so, the tonality of the rapper warms up, stomping down the meaning of bars whose narrative is webbed by frustration and fear.

and

Whereas cruising sounds off, as rapped by Kari Faux, as a gesture of resignation, Maria Wyeth gathers strength from the action.And, importantly, Maria Wyeth, as well as Kari Faux, suffocate from useless and all knowing help; Maria being institutionalized, dragged to parties, surveiled against her will, while Kari Faux simply alludes to a grandiose show of helpless help.

[myastrouniverse]

August/2024🌚♍️The reason I love myself better than YOU, is because I KNOW MYSELF better than YOU.

🌚▪️🎸 I was wondering how many boiling pots of water, poured over a restrained man’s naked dick, would it take to eventually break down and fall off? My guess is up to ten. The variable would be whether you were pouring all ten pots of water consecutively, or waiting five minutes, between pouring another pot; in order to wait for it to boil. It’s my guess waiting five minutes between dousing the penis with boiling water, would actually give it time to ‘cook’ on its own. I think you might end up using less water to break down the dick that way. I haven’t tested it. It’s my hypothesis.

🌚 < ☊ I feel really depressed today. It’s hard to get out of this slump. I don’t want to talk to anyone because no one has anything kind or supportive to say. I don’t want to do anything, because anything I do gets sabotaged. Anyone new I meet is always a handler, handled by someone else, to handle me. It doesn’t matter how hard I work, how nice and polite I present myself, or how much I do to help others. No one appreciates any effort I make. I am criticized for fucking BREATHING.

🌚🔺🚑. My health is probably better right now than it has been in YEARS, which should give you some indication of how fucked up I have been. Once I am fully recovered physically, I think I will practice ignoring people until they cease to exist in this dimension.

🌚 < 🌽 I AM wondering whether or not anyone has a guilty conscience. If I had tortured an innocent person, I might feel remorse. I have to remember psychopaths don’t feel. I have to remember not to hold compassion for people, who are not compassionate. They don’t deserve me in their life.

♀️ Λ ♇︎ Please leave me alone. I AM not a parasite whore bot. I will not be treated like a parasite whore bot by any individual, corporation, or government. Please fuck off to ALL the HATERS who wish me harm over their OWN ego issues and delusions.

🌞 < 🦚 I AM actually a very nice friend to have around. I believe everyone who has ever known me, knows me to be kind and accepting. I suppose eccentric people tend to befriend me, because I don’t notice their eccentricities. I tend to be too forgiving. I don’t hold grudges. I get taken advantage of because of that. I automatically give people respect, and I never seem to notice that no one in the room respects me. I wonder why? I wonder what is behind these mental disorders the ‘privileged’ seem to have.

🌚▪️ ♅︎ If we cannot take care of our people now, there won’t be any in the future.

🌚 Λ ♆︎ I can FORGIVE someone with good intentions, who made some bad choices. I can do so, because I know with a good foundation, a person will eventually learn from their errors and progress. I CANNOT forgive a person with bad intentions, who makes the correct choices. Why? Because if your foundation is FALSE, you will NEVER CARE if you lose or succeed.

Jon Brion - You Can Still Ruin My Day

Renée Stout - Erzulie's Mirror (The Crying Mirror), 2013

[llovelymoonn]

can you make a webweaving about grief? i just recently lost a close family member

nizar qabbani arabian love poems \\ renée stout red house in black rain (for jimi hendrix) (2017) \\ nizar qabbani a woman moving within me \\ fariha róisín how to cure a ghost \\ jct li quasicrystals \\ victoria chang obit (via @geryone) \\ adam martinakis the inevitablity of time /pieta \\ victoria chang obit (via @geryone) \\ zin lim id #20.1