2006

RENEE STOUT

Artist: Renée Stout

Title: "Waiting for Jimi"

Date: 2006

Process:  Screenprint

Paper Size: 30” x 22”

Master Printer: Susan Goldman

Stout is a Washington, D.C., artist whose paintings and sculptures have earned her international recognition. Stout’s assemblages incorporate found objects, African symbols, remnants of stories and letters, and vintage photographs. 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. A dark edge of her artwork followed her move to D.C., where she witnessed sordid truths behind urban decay and city life. Rampant drug use and racial stereotyping are among the issues Stout directly confronts in mixed-media works. Fictional narratives with imaginary characters derived from the artist’s alter ego trace her personal history and spiritual journey as a woman and artist.

Stout’s prints, drawings, photographs, and mixed media installations have been exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the U.S., England, Russia, and the Netherlands, including a solo exhibition at the National Museum of African Art. Her work is held in the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. The artist, in collaboration with poet Carol Beane, won the National Museum for Women in the Arts Library Fellows Artist’s Book Award in 2008 for their work The Streets of Used to Be.