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    • SX-70 Polaroids
    • 20 x 24 inch Polaroids
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    • ArtistsHandsGridContinuum
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    • Home
    • POLAROID ART 1976-1989
      • SX-70 Polaroids
      • 20 x 24 inch Polaroids
    • Ladies Dictionary 17-21 C
    • Artists Hands 1984-2024
      • ArtistsHandsGridContinuum
      • Artists' Hands
      • Artists' Hands List
    • Paintings and Drawings
    • Contact
    • Resume Rena Small
  • Home
  • POLAROID ART 1976-1989
    • SX-70 Polaroids
    • 20 x 24 inch Polaroids
  • Ladies Dictionary 17-21 C
  • Artists Hands 1984-2024
    • ArtistsHandsGridContinuum
    • Artists' Hands
    • Artists' Hands List
  • Paintings and Drawings
  • Contact
  • Resume Rena Small

  MFA 1977, BFA 1975, Cal Arts:       

        "Welcome to my world of art!" 

2024 Nov,16-Dec.14 Painted playing cards 
Council St. rena small  LA, CA

20th-21st Century Contemporary American Art

Rena Small Self 1994

Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat

Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat

Self Portrait Rena Small 1994

Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat

Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat

Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat

Andy Warhol 1985 for Artists' Hands New York City Copyright Rena Small

Joan Jonas 2010

Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat

Joan Jonas 2010

Joan Joanas for Artists' Hands 2010 by Rena Small

Joan Jonas 2010

& DEVO








Jean-Michel Basquiat 1985 Copyright Rena Small 2024
a room with portraits of hands of different artists

         Begun in 1984, Artists' Hands Grid Continuum last full installation was in 2014 at Angles Gallery in Los Angeles; both epic 7 x 85 ft. and intimate, showed 248 artists hands portraits. The series continues on to appreciate artists working and expressing their devoted visions freely to  inspire, and continue to help evolve a peaceful culture throughout the world. Each artists' hands portrait is 23" x 19" x 1/2 inch depth framed in white.


The installation included my first handmade letterpress book, 

Artists' Hands I  from the J.Paul Getty Museum of Art permanent art collection in LA, CA. 1995 AP 1 of 2. 

A wall with portraits of hands of different artists
Collage of Artists Hands Art Gallery Pictures
Collage of hands of different artists

The Moon is Black 1988, 20 x 24 inch Polaroid with a water-color painting floating -  17 inch diameter moon painting in the backdrop right hand corner is an  excerpt from the series "The Moon is Twelve Colors." The color  Black recalls the dark tragedy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic which emerged in New York City in 1981 when suddenly colleagues and friends were dying-too young- from this awful emergent disease. 


My art  uses techniques to tell a story I've experienced;   Whether I employ silver gelatin photographs, hand-sculpted 2-dimensional paintings on mahoghany doorskin with acrylic and resins;  archive ink jet color prints from original scans; or share my rare collection of "vintage 20 x 24 inch color Polaroid and SX-70 Prints:" my  art formations are created to classical  standards of  "how this art  archived art object will  last the longest possible to share with future audiences viewers." 


About Polaroid: These are each unique artists proofs that document a performance. From each series, one was given in trade to the Polaroid Art Collection-- from 1977-1987. Over 200 of my images  were sold off in 2010 at Sothebys, New York, NY, from the Polaroid Corporations' Art Collection-- when Polaroid went bankrupt due to the creation of digital photography.  Those in trade were purchased by  the Westlicht Schauplatz fur Fotografie, in Vienna, Austria along with 3,000 other artists' images.

Chocolates acrylic on mahogany door skin

                 P A I N T I N G S

  ___________________________________

 Chocolates 2023, 

36 x 22 inches, acrylic on mahogany door skin, is one example of  my ongoing series since 1989, "The Fake-O Cards" inspired by the Haines 1936 deck --used by Hollywood  Magic Castle Close-up Magicians to warm up their audiences by producing a card from their pockets or sleight of hand, that does not exist.


     All my art is titled by American slang language, words and phrases created by others talking past and present or by me--as in "The Moon is Black," inspired by real-life experiences and restructured into art reinterpreted art objects.




Race Card, acrylic, epoxy on mahogany door skin

Race Card,  2020,

54 x 36 inches acrylic, epoxy on mahogany door skin


This painting  represents my total disdain for Racism, symbolizing the concept with a celebration of the beautiful and rich colors of our human beings' skin tones-symbolized in the epoxy-surfaced-reflecting-spades.


The phrase race card first came into play in 1995 during the O.J. Simpson trial, coined by one of his lawyers, the late Johnny Cochran and  used to describe a racist point of view by one of the defendents ...this painting defies the definition by presenting the various skin colors of human anatomy in each playing card spade symbol instead, as a visual clue to humanism.

Art Copyright Rena Small 2023     All Rights Reserved.


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