Bio

Marina Vendrell Renaut was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her MFA from the California College of the Arts in 2000. Her work has exhibited throughout the United States, and China. Using combinations of discarded socks, sweaters, fur coats, toys and yarn, her soft sculptures explore her relationship to the animal world and the natural cycle of life and death. As Visiting Artist at the San Francisco Day School, in San Francisco, California, she taught four hundred children to finger knit.

Artist Statement

Underneath the little routines and rituals that make up my daily life, there lies a basic discomfort with death (and some misgivings about my own animal nature). The comforts I seek, the food I consume, the clothing I wear- all of it provides me with a cloak that veils my inevitable end. Art making emboldens me to poke fun of my fear, and the unavoidable sorrows I feel for the living world I move through.

My first encounter while thrift shopping, with a toy made of fur, filled me with a wave of conflicting emotions. The naivete of the toy, the beauty of the fur, the death of the animal- all warred within me, echoing my ambivalence toward my own physical existence. The fur coats of Good Will supply me with the opportunity to confront death, and fill me with the (perhaps, only partly) vain hope of giving a mink a second life.

Naturally I am not without some qualms, when I dwell on my own passing, and the cost of my existence to others. As I battle my denial, the innocent kitsch of yarn serves as my baby blanket, my comfort.

I wield my crochet hook, sneak a peek at death, and stick out my tongue.

 

 

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