RENATO NIEMIS
Lives and works in United Kingdom
Biography
Renato is a London based artist who originally trained as a physicist at Imperial College and then worked in the aerospace industry for ten years. He then changed direction and turned to art, training in London art colleges for six years and has an MA in sculpture from Chelsea College of Art and Design.
He has been involved in a number of independent London based group shows as an artist, curator and organiser. These include galleries and art fairs in America, Germany and the UK.
He has had solo shows at the Imperial War Museum, the Museum of Installation, Gavin Turk’s studio and Factual Nonsense London.
His work has been represented in the Saatchi and Arts Council collections.
His largest commissioned work is a 52 glass panel memorial sculpture for Sir Norman Foster’s American Air Museum at the Imperial War Museum Duxford.
Recently he has concentrated on raising a family and working with schools but has also returned to making and exhibiting new work in response to current issues that continue to inspire and provoke.
Artist statement
Renato Niemis’s recent work commemorates and raises questions about the often overlooked wounded and maimed soldiers and civilians who are the living casualties of conflict. The aim of his work is to make people think about the dichotomy intrinsic to the need to use force and its consequences both physical and mental. His work encourages reflection on the slow healing process required by victims of conflict.
Renato’s work is inspired by recent spontaneous popular uprisings, the pressure for change and the subsequent turmoil and human cost. His work looks at the dual edged nature of the desire to support the passionate fight for freedom against suppression, with the unknown consequences of the use of force. Does the need to nurture this change have to be balanced with the need to protect and guard against ‘collateral damage’ and with the potential for new cycles of violence?
In his work bandages conceal weapons but their shape and intent remain unmistakable. Have the weapons been rendered impotent or are they being rehabilitated for future use? These wrappings evoke the idea of shrouds, cocoons and damaged bodies, but also of the internal essential healing process.
Wild Flowers are used as symbols of blood and wounds, of hope and rebirth, of life and death. Flowers or weeds, they exhibit natural random growth: unwanted by some, yet cultivated by others. The wildflower’s natural instinct for survival is impossible to eradicate, like the passion for freedom it can never be suppressed.