Kaja Renkas

Background and professional career

Between 2000-2004 Kaja Renkas studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland, where she received a Presidential Scholarship in 2003 and graduated with honours in printmaking the following year. During 2007 she commenced lecturing in Graphic Design at the Silesia Higher School of Information Science and in 2010 gained her PhD from the University of Silesia, Katowice. Renkas commenced teaching and demonstrating there in 2011, and in 2015 was Assistant Professor / lecturer in the Department of New Media at the university's Institute of Art. Her doctorate was on the circus - CYRK - in the Polish poster tradition, and around that time she produced a number of posters on that theme.

Posters and graphics

Kaja Renkas is part of the long tradition of Polish poster artists. After receiving her doctorate she moved into an area of poster creation loosely based around surrealistic collage, working in the digital environment and utilising software such as Photoshop, though incorporating found and real objects and images which were scanned into the computer. The art of Kaja Renkas is, broadly speaking, in the European Surrealism tradition. Her work is unique in the manner in which art historical influences are presented, extending beyond the simple Surrealist catch-all. Like the German Dada and Surrealist artist Max Ernst, Renkas uses collage to create multi-layered images which are modern in their use of antiquities such as old photographs. The work of Australian artist Martin Sharp during the 1960s and even the American member of Monty Python, Terry Gilliam, from the following decade comes to mind when viewing one of Renkas' posters, with all four engaging in a crazed, colourful and ultimately satirical use of Surrealist collage, arising, in part, from the intellectual anarchy of Dada and related early twentieth century movements. Dismembered limbs, bodies, flesh and mechanical contraptions are placed in a phantasmagorical landscape which is neither dream nor nightmare. The art of Kaja Renkas is noteworthy for this very fact, namely, that it can, in a single instance, be familiar yet fresh, welcoming yet inexplicable, and beautiful while at the same time disturbing, though never grotesque. It presents a late nineteenth century, pre World War II sensibility, reflecting the recent rise of Steampunk and renewed affection for an era when humanity was not yet a slave to technology. The disconnect between nature and machine was real. The body and the artefact, or mechanical device, are therefore, in the art of Kaja Renkas, mere pieces in a jigsaw of the mind. Apart from posters - largely produced by the machine-based photo offset lithographic process, and on occasion by manual silk screen printing - Renkas has also applied her graphic design skills and artistry to published material such as postcards, calendars, videos and books, includings catalogues, along with traditional painting and the application of her print designs to fabrics.

Exhibitions and competitions

Since 2009 Renkas has exhibited extensively in her native Poland, throughout Europe, and as far afield as Japan, South America, the United States and Wales. She has participated in major international poster competitions in Warsaw, La Paz, Tehran, Lahti, Toyama and Moscow. Her works are in private collections and museums around the world. She has had several solo exhibitions in Poland and abroad (Berlin, Saint Louis, DeKalb, Ankara) and participated in numerous group exhibitions throughout the world. She has led art workshops at the Northern Illinois University (USA), Bilkent University (Turkish) and Glyndwr University (UK). Some exhibitions she has appeared in are listed below.

Awards

Education