Price: €10400
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Artist is based in: Sweden
Renan de Menezes Anan is a Brazilian-born artist based in Sweden whose practice centres on contemporary sculpture and material-based research. He recently completed a Master of Fine Arts at Umeå University in Sweden and previously earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, USA.
Drawing on his Brazilian, Japanese, and European heritage, de Menezes Anan explores how objects function as carriers of cultural memory, identity, and historical narratives. His sculptures often operate as speculative artifacts from a time that never existed, combining traditional craftsmanship with digital fabrication techniques. Working primarily with wood, steel, bronze, and copper, he investigates ancestry, cultural hybridity, material symbolism, and the ways in which objects embody identity and cultural knowledge.
Through the transformation of materials and symbols, de Menezes Anan examines how traditions can be preserved, reinterpreted, and translated into contemporary forms. Many of his recent works, including Kabuto, Jingasa, and ᛁᛅᚱᚾ (Iron), explore dialogues between different cultural traditions. Rather than reproducing historical objects, he creates hybrid sculptural forms that merge influences from Japanese craftsmanship, Brazilian symbolism, and European material traditions, generating narratives that exist between history and imagination.
His work has been exhibited internationally at Bildmuseet and Galleri Alva in Umeå, Sandviken Art Gallery – Kulturcentrum in Sweden, The Baum School of Art in Pennsylvania, Salem Art Works in New York, and the New York Academy of Art, where he was selected as a finalist for the 2023 AXA Art Prize US. He has received scholarships from Penland School of Craft, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and The Royal Skyttean Society. His work is represented in the Permanent Art Collection of Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, USA.
De Menezes Anan has also participated in residencies and fellowship programmes at NE Sculpture | Gallery Factory, Salem Art Works, and Pilchuck Glass School. Alongside his artistic practice, he works as a Research Teaching Assistant at UmArts, supporting interdisciplinary artistic research, exhibitions, and public programming at Umeå University. Through both his artistic and academic work, he seeks to create meaningful connections between materials, cultures, and histories, exploring how identity is continuously shaped, preserved, and transformed.
