Story by Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Artists need not work in isolation, a point Billy Renkl and Greg Sand hope to underscore with their collaborative exhibit “Four Hand Compositions.” The show is the natural result of seven years of seeking each other’s advice regarding their individual work.
The exhibit will open with an intimate reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Dec. 5 at The Framemaker, 705 N. Second Street, during the First Thursday Art Walk.
Like the musical form of “four hand piano,” where a duet is played by two people on one instrument, “Four Hand Compositions” is a happy marriage where the artwork speaks with one voice. Both Renkl and Sand work primarily with found imagery.
While Sands was originally a student of Renkl, who is professor of art, drawing and illustration at Austin Peay State University, Renkl said he has learned as much from Sands as Sands likely has from him.
“From the time I first met him, he was a remarkable artist,” Renkl said.
Collaboration was not an efficient process, as each artist continually deferred to the other while creating the art. Typically each piece began when Greg removed a figure from an antique photo.
“I had this group of found photos in which I had bleached out the person in the image,” said Sand, who has worked as an assistant to Renkl. “These pieces had been stuck in an unfinished state for quite a while. I eventually showed them to Billy, and it didn’t take us long to realize that the area where the person once stood made the perfect space to add collage elements.”
The two would converse — sometimes for months, Renkl said — about how each piece would be rendered, including the collage element. The end result is portraits that reveal some inner truth about the fictitious subject.
“I suppose it’s easiest to think of these collaborations as portraits of fictional characters,” Renkl said. “Not so much what they look like as what they believe or have experienced; who they are.”
“The result is a group of pieces that combines characteristics of both our work to create a unique vision that is distinct from our solo pursuits,” Sand said.
“Portrait of a Strategist” is another of the works in the exhibit “Four Hand Compositions.”
Karen Parr-Moody began a career as a New York journalist, working as a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, a beauty editor for Young Miss and a beauty and fashion writer for both In Style and People magazines. Regionally, she has been a writer at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper and currently writes about arts and culture for Nashville Arts magazine each month.