Know Thy Self Painting

Accomplished painter and sculptor, Renée Vance [American - born 1954] is best known for her iconic and ethereal portraits of figures and wildlife. Vance’s paintings are identifiable by sensitive brush work and multiple layers of gold and silver leaf that add both depth and luminosity to her portraits. Vance, a self-taught painter, has been influenced by the aesthetics of Classical Realism, the Renaissance, and female painters and sculptors past and present. Informed by a desire to link the natural with the spiritual, her depictions of people from various cultural backgrounds, honor beauty, diversity and universality. Vance brings this same sensitivity and keen sense of interconnectedness to her rich and often times haunting studies of birds and other wildlife in nature. Vance currently lives and works in northern Michigan.