RenArt Studios
Art by Renée Switkes
Welcome to RenArt Studios. Renée Switkes has always been drawn to art and made it her priority in 2017. With a love for color, light, and shapes she brings these elements together in her acrylic paintings of flowers. Explore her pieces below.
All Paintings are Acrylic on Canvas
12x12 $500 each 24x24 $800
Paintings Available for Purchase
Current Works of Art in Progress
Please consider following Renée on Instagram if you would like to see works in progress. She usually posts photos as she creates two or three times each week.
Bio of the Artist
Renée Switkes
Californian born, Renée Switkes graduated from San Jose State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Preparation for Teaching and Minor in Studio Art. She enjoys teaching the love of art to children of all ages.  Currently you can find her sharing her love of art at three locations: Stanford Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital with Kids & Art Foundation, a school in Campbell, and a school in Sunnyvale.
In the early years after college she enjoyed exploring abstract art and mixing colors.  As motherhood joys came along she found there wasn’t time to paint, teach, and raise a family so she put her paints away while her kids were young.  Now that her two children are more independent she has returned to her passion to paint. Her current focus has been painting detailed flowers using acrylic paint on stretched canvas.  She loves color, light, shadow, and the shapes created by these. She enjoys going to places like the San Jose Municipal Rose garden or local nursery to take photos of flowers during sunset or early morning.  She then will choose which photo inspires her and draws it out before painting it on canvas.
Paintings Sold
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Influences
Renée paints flowers because of two important people who inspire her: Phyllis Semple and Georgia O’Keeffe.
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When Renée was 18 years old Phyllis and Ted Semple, parents of high school friend, offered for her to stay in their home when her mom suddenly moved out of the area. Phyllis encouraged her to go to college and to pursue her passion for art. Phyllis took away Renée’s self doubt and filled her up with encouragement. Phyllis loved flowers and had wonderful gardens. Renée enjoyed spending time with Phyllis in her garden. Phyllis suddenly passed away in 2011 leaving a big hole in Renée’s heart and to fill it she finds ways to connect with Phyllis, one being flowers and the other cooking meals with lots of color.
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Georgia O’Keeffe is a famous painter known for her large paintings of flowers and bones. Renée learned about O’Keeffe in a college art history course. Renée loved that O’Keeffe was an independent women who did not let the ideas of others squash her own unique ideas and that she was able to be successful despite traditional mindsets. So like O’Keeffe, Renée paints flowers as the single subject and up close, but unlike her, Renée likes to focus on light, shadow, and details.
Each flower painted is another flower to connect with Renée’s most inspirational people.
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