Delray Beach Artist Recognized

Renee Rey (Photo by Dennis Church)

(Press Release) March 26, 2024 (Lake Worth Beach, Fla.) -- The Cultural Council for Palm Beach County is pleased to announce that Delray Beach-based professional artist Renée Rey has been named the recipient of the 2024 Dina Baker Fund for Mature Female Artists.

Thanks to the generosity of local artist and longtime Cultural Council supporter Dina Baker, the Dina Baker Fund for Mature Female Artists was created to help stabilize and strengthen the careers of female artists ages 60 and up with financial need and recognizable merit. The artist may use the $10,000 grant for professional development, arts-related exhibitions, equipment and supplies, healthcare costs or basic living expenses.
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“I feel so honored to be recognized for my art by such a prestigious art community,” Rey said. “The opportunity to show my work at the Cultural Council for Palm Beach County is very exciting, and the financial support will really help to elevate my work. It’s allowing me to invest in higher quality supplies, exhibition expenses, and pursue marketing development opportunities that I otherwise wouldn’t have considered.”

In addition to the funds, each award recipient receives an exhibition in the Cultural Council’s Donald M. Ephraim Family Gallery at the Cultural Council’s headquarters in Lake Worth Beach. Curated by Director of Artist Services Jessica Ransom, the exhibition will run from April 12 through June 8. The paintings in the exhibition were produced from 2017 to 2023 and are part of her continuous Mystical Ecospheres series that displays an evolution over time.

“In large and intimately scaled paintings, I create other-worldly mystical ecospheres that explore the concepts of place, memory, transformation, and reconstruction,” Rey said. “The works focus on the connection between awe-inspiring nature, the risks of technology and the rewards of kinship with people around the world. Central to my work is a belief in a ‘Grand Unity,’ an internal oneness with nature and people rooted in equality, inclusiveness, and a healthy global environment.”

This vision is deeply rooted in her paternal American/Jewish and maternal Armenian/French/Christian heritage and birthplace in Japan. Growing up hearing multiple languages and experiencing different cultural traditions, her artistic vocabulary has always had the common thread of diversity.

In her work, Rey aims to provoke a dialog between paint and a higher state of consciousness. Created with oil and acrylic on paper (as well as graphite), she gradually reveals layers of symbolism and mystery through unexpected visual relationships with dripping paint, sweeping brush stokes, and both abstract and surreal imagery that points to the earthly and the transcendent.

Rey’s intention is to transport viewers into expansive mystical worlds that awaken wonderment, inspiration, and deep connection to viewers’ personal experiences.

Rey’s award-winning work has been shown locally in solo exhibitions at Bailey Contemporary Arts Gallery (where she currently serves as curator for the gallery retail window) and the Tauni De Lesseps Gallery at Palm Beach Atlantic University, as well as dozens of group and juried exhibitions across the world.

With a career spanning 30 years, Rey has been an international curator and visiting artist and lecturer at several universities, in addition to teaching ongoing art classes. She is currently a Bailey Contemporary Artist in Residence through June 2024.

Past Dina Baker Fund award recipients include:

• 2023: Patricia Lappin
• 2022: Michele Hundt
• 2019: Glenda Green
• 2018: Hegina Rodrigues
• 2017: Debra Yates
• 2016: Batia Lowenberg
• 2015: Alyssa Di Edwardo

The exhibition will take place in the Cultural Council’s Donald M. Ephraim Family Gallery at its downtown Lake Worth Beach headquarters; exhibition hours are Tuesday through Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.