Deerbie®
About the artist

Ren

From watching… to doing. From abstraction to torn surfaces, through collage, object customisation and upcycling, Renaud Piquard — Ren — (Verviers, Belgium, now based in Dison) builds a practice shaped by colour, material and tension. It begins long before painting. As a child, then a teenager, he encounters art through family exhibitions, through the walls of cities travelled with his parents, and through artistic studies before the 2000s. There is curiosity. A real interest in art history. In contemporary creation. But no action. “I was curious about art in all its forms… but I stayed a non-practitioner for a long time.” At the same time, another world surrounds him. Skate culture. Years of practice. Urban references. Present, but never fully entered. “I’ve always felt close to it… but I never really went through it. Just a few tags.” Music runs in parallel. From Nirvana to Nas. From Daft Punk to Springsteen. From Orelsan to Linkin Park. A constant background. Painting follows the same freedom. From Michelangelo to Jérôme Bosch. From Basquiat to Banksy. No boundaries. “I don’t like belonging to a movement. I’ve always felt it was limiting.” For years, he observes. He absorbs. He stays on the side. Until something shifts. “My art started as a pleasure… and became a necessity.” The change is not only technical. It is internal. A need to express. A need to exist through it. “I have so much to say… and it’s easier for me to express it through painting than through words.” Painting becomes a space apart. Solitary. But chosen. “It allows me to isolate myself… to feel joy… to feel free.” No fixed destination. “I’m a wandering painter without a defined destination.” The point is not to reach. But to move. To allow accidents. Unexpected encounters. Constant questioning. At first, the work is simple. Pouring. Direct techniques. Then it evolves. More structure. More layers. More control — and at the same time, more letting go. A language emerges. Abstract backgrounds, built slowly, with patience. Crossed by raw tears. More instinctive. More direct. Almost brutal. A tension. Slow construction. Fast gesture. In Paris, it becomes visible. “Ah yes… you’re the one with the tears.” But recognition is not the goal. “The trap is to make decorative work just to please the greatest number.” What matters is elsewhere. Freedom. Risk. Integrity. At some point, something else shifts. Small formats are no longer enough. Simple techniques either. Encounters with other artists in Liège push him further. His family supports him. So he makes space. Other activities fade. Time reorganises. Painting expands. Into the house. From the kitchen to the bedroom. To the garage — which becomes the studio. Not a hobby anymore. A necessity. At the same time, his relationship to art extends beyond himself. As an educator, he leads artistic workshops with people living with mental and/or physical disabilities. Another space of expression. Direct. Essential. Beyond words. His works follow different paths. Some remain in homes. Others travel. Left in different places. By him. By others. “They belong to whoever discovers them… and dares to pick them up.” A gesture that echoes something deeper: “What you give will remain forever… and what you keep will disappear.” Today, Ren continues. To search. To experiment. To stay free. “To have fun. To feel good. To stay free.” Some places remain in mind. La Boverie, in Liège. Not as a goal. As a resonance. And always, this idea: “A creative adult is a child who survived.” Nothing to conclude. Only to continue.
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