Nadine Renazile should be on your radar. Actually, she should be a big dot, huge dot on your radar.
Above: The artist Nadine Renazile poses with singer Lauryn Hill.
The Haiti-born, New York abstract and mixed media painter is known for melting multiple cultural identities in her work. She says her work expresses themes like displacement, language, race and social class ambiguity and of course, memory and family relationships. Recently, her work was part of singer-songwriter Lauryn Hill’s Diaspora Calling group exhibition.
Nathalie’s work has also been on display at the Smack Mellon Gallery, and her work was in the exhibition line-up at Princeton University’s All-Rise at Robertson Hall. You can catch an exhibition featuring the work of the Columbia University graduate at Selebrasyon, Haiti Cultural Exchange’s Haitian art, culture, music extravaganza going on right now until the end of June.
Kreyolicious: At which moment did you have your first epiphany that being an artist was going to be a huge part of your life?
In 2013 while painting in Studio #16 at the Art Students League, I knew I had found my passion and right then and there I dedicated my life to becoming a painter.
Kreyolicious: Was parental support heavy when you made your intentions known?
I was in my fifties when I started painting; parental support was not a consideration. However, it took a while for friends and family to understand how hugely important painting was to me. At first, they were annoyed at listening to me rave about this gallery show or that museum exhibition, but then slowly they came around to accepting the fact that this wasn’t simply a pastime.
Kreyolicious: Did you ever have to struggle within yourself between being an artist and pursuing something else?
Interestingly, I had just completed a Master’s in Information Management and Knowledge Strategy at Columbia University and was looking into becoming a Knowledge Manager at another institution but then I realized that I wanted to paint full time. I’ve had to say NO a lot! Knowing that I am a librarian and possessing a certain skill set, people have all kinds of requests of me but having waited so long to find the one thing I was born to do, I felt I needed to give it my all and not be sidetracked by other people’s needs. It’s hard for folks to understand, but I’ve been pretty uncompromising about not veering off my path.
Above: From Nadine Renazile’s Earthquake painting series. Photo taken by Gina Marcel.
Kreyolicious: What do you usually do when you have a creativity slump?
I read art books, lots of poetry, visit museums and galleries or I just work through ideas in my sketchbooks.
Kreyolicious: Have you been to Haiti?
I went to Haiti in 2010 two months after the earthquake. It was a life-defining moment. Previous to that time I hadn’t been in decades. In Haiti, all the familiar landmarks of my childhood were gone, the Cathedral where I had my first communion and my elementary school amongst other things. My old family home in Fontamara was not only gone, but the whole area had become totally impoverished. It was no longer the haven I remembered it to have been forty years ago. It was devastating to see that the social and economic fabric of the country had deteriorated to such extent that people had to live this way. I was staying in Frère, but didn’t feel very safe there. Despite the high walls everywhere, things were still in disarray. However, I took a side trip to Hinche and fell in love with the interior of the country. It was like time had stopped, young men and women reading their books were sitting in a sweet little park in the town center. People spoke this amazing lyrical Kréyol; they had a great dignity about them. I felt humbled. I think I fell in love with my language then. Although I had traveled there to volunteer my services, things didn’t turn out that way. I did a couple of things, but certainly not enough to warrant saying “I volunteered”. I am still haunted by what I saw there. I’ve been working on an ongoing series about the earthquake for a while now. I hope one of these days to do a residency somewhere that would allow me the space and time needed to work on that exclusively.
Kreyolicious: What do you wish you had known before launching your career?
Had I known I would have developed this passion for painting I would have gotten both a BFA and an MFA (Bachelor and Masters of Fine Arts). I think a formal art education would have been beneficial. That said I’ve been pursuing an atelier-style education at the Art Students League in New York and doing art residencies and taking workshops. Mostly, I am developing a practice where I paint everyday, developing my visual vocabulary—that’s the best way to build potency in my art. My brother Erick has an MFA and I was always in awe of his skill set and talent.
Kreyolicious: If you were to make a short list of books that have changed your life…what would make the Top 5?
I’m interested in a world of ideas. I’m a reader, I’ve been a librarian for over twenty years, so my list is deep, but I’ll try to stick with the five requested. A list of best anything is always a capricious endeavor, but here I go:
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse was the first book I read in high school that made me think beyond the obligatory classroom response. It is a philosophical novel. The idea of seeking enlightenment was astounding to me; I was becoming aware of myself as a person. I walked around the house for days in a trance. My parents thought I had gone mad.
A librarian friend, Jean Refusé, gave me this poetry collection by Félix Morisseau-Leroy titled Haitiad and Oddities. This was right after I returned from Haiti and having fallen in love with Kréyol. His “Thank You Dessalines” gives me a thrill each time I read it.
I love James Baldwin’s lucid writing but one in particular, Another Country, is a spellbinding book that raised my black consciousness to another level entirely. This is black intellectualism at its best.
Like most of Toni Morrison’s books, Song of Solomon is not for the faint of heart. The story of a black family striving is so compelling. Morrison presents black life is such a radical way: unapologetic, unblinking and fierce. The end of the novel, which, can best be described as a flight of fancy, captured my Haitian imagination.
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. Another poetry collection, this one presents as both a collection of poetry and criticism. This book is a timely meditation on race, violence, racism, and art. This tour de force is poetic and political. I created two paintings based on Rankine’s meditation on Serena Williams.
Above: Another Nadine Renazile painting. Photographed by: L. Blumberg
Kreyolicious: What are some accomplishments that you hope to check off in the next five years?
I want to paint full-time. I’m hoping to get gallery presentation, to continue showing my work and share it in all kinds of ways and grow my artist community. I’d like to be able to make a living while pursuing my passion. I’m trying to develop clarity in my art, be engaging and relevant. And yes, dare I say it, to have my art in museums however improbable the whole idea might seem. I always dream big.
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