By Jessica Jones
Angie Renfro
A forgotten silo, a lonely bird on a telephone wire, and a run-down storage unit inspire Angie Renfro’s work. With titles like lost in tomato town, somewhere in midland, and nowhere, it isn’t hard to guess that the native Texan’s oil paintings are largely influenced by her road trips across the expansive and often sparse Texas landscape. “There is something interesting about how we affect a landscape,” says Renfro. “What was once an empty space now holds a rusting, abandoned silo. There is a story there—I enjoy taking something overlooked and drawing attention to it, putting a frame around it, and making it beautiful.”
It is fitting, then, that Renfro, who obtained her bachelor’s degree in illustration from the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, CA, in 2002, returned to Texas to launch her painting career just over a year ago. Supporting herself with a part-time job as a waitress, she spent the next six months locked in her San Antonio studio. Within five months, Renfro was invited to her first group show.
Although the Dallas-born artist now lives in San Francisco, she is still drawn to the Texas aesthetic: “The land is simple, flat, and sometimes bleak. There is not a lot of distraction, so there is plenty of time to think. You drive so much in Texas that it just lends itself to that.”
The artist has a show this month at Huff Harrington Fine Art in Atlanta, GA. She is also represented by Wally Workman Gallery, Austin, TX; EC Gallery, San Diego, CA; and www.angierenfro.com.
Featured in “Artists to Watch” October 2006