Renold Laurent

Bio.
Rénold Laurent is a Haitian artist currently based in Cambridge, MA. His dynamic and expressive paintings are rooted in imagined dialogue with his audience and between mixed media, cultural history, the present, and our collective future. He was born in Source Bretoux, a village at the foot of the Marbial Valley—a few kilometers from the city of Jacmel, Haiti. This small corner of the world might have existed in obscurity, except that it produced four of Haiti’s most famous painters: Castera Bazile, Wilmino Domond, Célestin Faustin, and Fritzner Lamour. At the age of ten, Rénold began to draw and paint under the direction of his father, Maccène Laurent, a primitif artist. Very early, he was inspired by the cultural life of his rural environment, including Rara festival music, Carnival, and the architecture of Jacmel.
In 1995, in his quest to continue improving his painting techniques, he took many trips between Jacmel and Port-au-Prince to open his mind and learn more about other artists. It was through the books and catalogs of the Alliance Française library in Jacmel that he began to discover the works of Manet, Cézanne, Monet, Daly, Kandinsky, Klee, Pollock, and the names of great Haitian painters such as Hypolite...

Renold began to draw and paint under the direction of his father, Maccène Laurent. But he soon abandoned the primitive art of his beginnings to implement new perspectives.
From the beginning of the 1990s, I was drawn to the remnants of the tourist influx in Jacmel, which allowed me to earn some money to meet my basic needs. I was also very drawn to the architecture, the sea, the daily life, and the cultural bustle of this city. Music, carnival, rara. Then, from 1995, cultural centers, libraries ...
This is how I began to discover the works of Manet, Cézanne, Monet, Bazille, Daly, Kandinsky, Léger, Klee, Pollock, Tiga, Cédor, and Lazard ... Starting with my father, they were influenced by me.
I am exploring new techniques in my paintings to finally turn to abstraction as a mode of visual communication.

Individual Exhibition:

2024 - Individual Exhibition, "Vibration of Colors", Lightspace Art Gallery at the International Art Museum of America (IAMA). San Francisco, CA.

           June 14, July 31, 2024.

2019 - Individual Exhibition, “Memory Work” Gallery at the Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice; February 15, 2019 - May 10, 2019.

2018 - Individual Exhibition, Mary L. Fifield Gallery at Bunker Hill Community College, Boston, MA; May 21–July 27.

2015 - Individual Exhibition at the Brazil/Haiti Cultural Center, Petionville, Haiti, April 10–30. 

2014 - Individual Exhibition at the Casa del Joven Creador, Santiago, Cuba; July 3–12.

2011 - Individual Exhibition at the Brazil/Haiti Cultural Center, Haiti, July 12 -August 10.

2008 - Individual Exhibition, Centre d’Art, Port-au-Prince, Haiti; April 25–May 9.

2006 - Individual Exhibition at the French Cultural Center, Jacmel, Haiti, April 28–May 5.

      Group Exhibition:

2023 - Documentary and digital exhibition "This Life: Black Life in the Time of Now" by the Miami Museum of the African Diaspora, Miami MOCAAD;                  December 2023.

2022 - Group Exhibition, “Racial Slavery, Marronage & Freedom” - Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice; September...