Artist Intent
Renée Rey is an award-winning contemporary artist whose paintings and mixed media works explore the unseen architecture of memory. Through richly layered surfaces that move between abstraction and representation, she constructs visual worlds where absence becomes presence and remembered experience is continually reshaped through time.
Born in Japan, to an American Jewish father and an Armenian mother raised in France, Rey grew up surrounded by multiple cultures, languages, and histories. Those early experiences continue to inform a practice that investigates how memory, identity, and place are built rather than simply preserved.
Her recent body of work, Absquora: The Archaeology of the Unseen, approaches memory as an excavation—revealing fragments, traces, and structures that exist beneath conscious awareness. Working in oil, acrylic, mixed media, and assemblage, she creates paintings that invite sustained looking, rewarding curiosity over certainty. Influenced by Surrealism, the Hudson River School, archaeology, and contemporary ideas about perception, Rey’s work balances structure with intuition, inviting viewers to become active participants in constructing meaning.
Rather than illustrating memories, Rey creates spaces where viewers encounter their own. Her intention is to make visible the invisible forces that shape our lives, fostering reflection, conversation, and deeper human connection.
Biography
Born in Sagamihara, Japan, Renée Rey is an award-win ... view more »
Artist Intent
Renée Rey is an award-winning contemporary artist whose paintings and mixed media works explore the unseen architecture of memory. Through richly layered surfaces that move between abstraction and representation, she constructs visual worlds where absence becomes presence and remembered experience is continually reshaped through time.
Born in Japan, to an American Jewish father and an Armenian mother raised in France, Rey grew up surrounded by multiple cultures, languages, and histories. Those early experiences continue to inform a practice that investigates how memory, identity, and place are built rather than simply preserved.
Her recent body of work, Absquora: The Archaeology of the Unseen, approaches memory as an excavation—revealing fragments, traces, and structures that exist beneath conscious awareness. Working in oil, acrylic, mixed media, and assemblage, she creates paintings that invite sustained looking, rewarding curiosity over certainty. Influenced by Surrealism, the Hudson River School, archaeology, and contemporary ideas about perception, Rey’s work balances structure with intuition, inviting viewers to become active participants in constructing meaning.
Rather than illustrating memories, Rey creates spaces where viewers encounter their own. Her intention is to make visible the invisible forces that shape our lives, fostering reflection, conversation, and deeper human connection.
Biography
Born in Sagamihara, Japan, Renée Rey is an award-winning artist based in Delray Beach, Florida.
Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in museums, galleries, and cultural institutions, including exhibitions in New York, Spain, Wisconsin, Alabama, and throughout Florida. She has presented solo exhibitions at Tauni De Lessep Gallery at Palm Beach Atlantic University and Hammond Hall Gallery, and her work has been included in juried exhibitions selected by museum curators, gallery directors, and arts professionals.
Rey is currently an Artist-in-Residence at Arts Warehouse in Delray Beach. Previous residencies include Bailey Contemporary Arts, Pompano Beach, FL, the School of Visual Arts Summer Painting Residency, New York, NY, and the Sun Peak Center for Art and Sustainability in Colorado.
Her interdisciplinary background includes studies in drawing, painting, three-dimensional design, film, performance art, computer art, and art history, complemented by professional experience in interior design, entrepreneurship, education, and Jewish studies. These diverse experiences inform a practice that bridges visual language, material exploration, and conceptual inquiry.
Rey’s paintings are held in private collections and continue to receive recognition through juried exhibitions, awards, and cultural programming. She lives and works in Delray Beach, Florida.
View less
Arabic
Chinese
English
French
German
Italian
Russian
Spanish
Vietnamese