Resume
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Gallery Representation: Rod Mickley Interiors, Vero Beach, Florida Arts on Douglas, New Smyrna Beach, FL |
In The Collections Of: Morris Museum of Art, Augusta, GA Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, FL Foosaner Art Museum, Melbourne, FL University of Florida, Gainesville, FL The Fishing Museum, Sebastian Inlet, FL |
Publications: Artist, René Guerin Vero Beach Magazine by Ellen Fisher Coast to Coast, The Contemporary Landscape in Florida The Museum of Arts and Sciences Daytona Beach, FL By Gary Libby |
Exhibitions
2024
Arts on Douglas, Endless Summer: A Group Exhibition
August 3 – September 21, 2024
Opening reception: Saturday, August 3, 4 – 7 PM
Arts on Douglas, 10,000 Hours: Paintings by Rene Guerin
Studio, New Work
62nd All Florida Juried Art Show of Stuart FL, Oasis and Beachscapes
Gallery Veritas, New Paintings
2023
Vero Beach Museum of Art
Treasure Coast Creates - A Tribute to Local Artists, Bird Song
Studio, New Work and Selections from the Archives
Arts on Douglas, Endless Summer: A Group Exhibition
August 3 – September 21, 2024
Opening reception: Saturday, August 3, 4 – 7 PM
Arts on Douglas, 10,000 Hours: Paintings by Rene Guerin
Studio, New Work
62nd All Florida Juried Art Show of Stuart FL, Oasis and Beachscapes
Gallery Veritas, New Paintings
2023
Vero Beach Museum of Art
Treasure Coast Creates - A Tribute to Local Artists, Bird Song
Studio, New Work and Selections from the Archives
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2020
Arts on Douglas March Solo exhibit, Cross Section Endless Summer Exhibition, The Kiss Bowery Gallery International Competition, New York City Night Swim 2018
Raw Space Gallery, Group Show The Center for Spiritual Care (Solo) The Figure Mostly Arts on Douglas, Endless Summer Foosaner Museum of Art, A Look Back: 40 Years of the Foosaner Collection Arts on Douglas, Past Perfect |
2019
Arts on Douglas, Summer Show Gallery 14, Strokes of Genius 2017 Foosaner Museum of Art, Woman Made Arts on Douglas, Nocturnes Arts on Douglas, Endless Summer Arts on Douglas, Horsin’ Around: benefit for The Atlantic Center for the Arts Arts on Douglas, Past Perfect Vero Beach Museum of Art, Selections from the Permanent Collection |
2016
Mary Woerner Fine Arts, Group Show: The Figure Mostly Vero Beach Museum of Art, Art in Bloom Arts on Douglas (Solo) In the Name of Art Arts on Douglas, Endless Summer Arts on Douglas, Horsin’ Around: benefit for The Atlantic Center for the Arts Arts on Douglas, Past Perfect Arts on Douglas, The Floral World Reconsidered |
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2015
The Thomas Center Galleries Group Invitational Arts on Douglas, Endless Summer Arts on Douglas, Past Perfect Arts on Douglas, Horsin’ Around: benefit for The Atlantic Center for the Arts |
2014
Arts on Douglas, Endless Summer Arts On Douglas, One Person Show, January 2014 |
2013
62nd All Florida Juried Competition and Exhibition Boca Raton Museum of Art Invitational, Court House Cultural Center Galleries, February and March 2013 |
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2011
Arts on Douglas, Featured Exhibition (My image was on the invitation and published in the Orlando Sentinel, May 2011) Arts on Douglas, Go Figure: Contemporary Interpretations of the Human Figure, July 2011 Vero Beach Museum of Art, From the Permanent Collection, Summer 2011 Intrepid Art Gallery Group Show, August 2011 Florida Museum for Women Artists, Through the Collector's Eye, May 7- July 10 |
2010
Vero Beach Museum of Art - From the Permanent Collection Brickhouse Studio -The Art of Preservation - April 17 |
2009
Solo show, Turner Center Group Invitational, Ice House Gallery 2008 Liquid Muse – Traveling Exhibition Begins at the Thomas Center |
UNTAMED
It is hard to imagine the charm of Vero in the 50's, but it was enough to persuade my parents to move here from California. It was possible to wait at an intersection as a turtle or egret crossed nonchalantly in front of the car. Huge Australian pines shaded Ocean Drive with a 60 ft. arch. The Driftwood Inn was there along with a few other motels sporting verandas and banana trees. Our family moved here in 1952. My parents had been searching for a warm climate, as my father had arthritis. He was a medical doctor who became the first surgery specialist in Vero Beach. After living a few years on Acacia Road, we moved into a big two-story house in Riomar, built the same year as my mother was born, 1920. The neighborhood was a paradise for kids. We always had something interesting to do, whether it was running on the sand roads behind the little mosquito trucks with their dense fog billowing out behind, or driving the beach at full moon in a beach buggy looking for sea turtles laying their egg.
My parents had built a summer cabin down close to where the Sebastian River flowed into the ocean, before there was a bridge across that inlet. The bridge over the Indian River, connecting Wabasso to Jungle Trail on the barrier island, was narrow and only a few feet off the water. Its wooden planks made a racket as you passed over, and it felt very daring to cross it at a high tide. Jungle Trail was a wallowing sand track and getting the car stuck in the sand was a common occurrence. The narrow strip before the inlet, now called Ampersand or Clam Beach, was a wild place full of birds, animals and fish. There was only one other house on that spit of land, owned by Florida crackers who went by the collective and colorful name of" Cotton and Them".
I remember having to leap over a coral snake while running down the path to the river, and the fear and fascination of watching a big yellow chicken snake climb a palm tree. A turtle's nest hatched close to the cabin one day and we dug pools at the water’s edge and tried to keep the little ones in the pools all day. The gulls were circling and we felt the sharks and big fish were waiting for them to start swimming. So, we thought if we kept them safe until dusk, they would have a better chance at survival. it was a hard job for a little kid and a serious one.
We would see all kinds of sea life washed up on the beach, from gannets to gravid turtles, as well as little bits of sponges, sea fans, star fish, sand dollars, skate and conch egg cases too. The reefs were full of lobster, sea cucumbers, urchins and fish. Dad would take the boat off shore when the blues were running and chum the water with cod liver oil. You would catch a fish as soon as you threw the bait in the water and just got worn out catching fish. I remember standing in the shallows of very clear ocean water on a calm day and having a stream of tiny silver fish cleanly part around me as they swam parallel to the shore. The stream of fish would seem to be endless and it was a thrill to have them streaming all around you. Occasionally you would see a small shark in a wave and that would scare the piss out of you! We had huge inner tubes from tractor tires that several kids could float on at once. If the wind was just right you could start rolling one down the beach and have to run like crazy to keep up with it.
We would sometimes go flounder gigging in the river at night. You would walk along in the shallows holding a kerosene lantern in one hand and a gig in the other, trying to spot a flounder laying camouflaged in the sand. They would lay in the sand and ruffle their side fins to cover their margins with sand until they disappeared in a soft hump and were very hard to spot. We would also chase mullet trapped in the shallows by little sand bars at low tide, trying to stun them with a stick and throw them up on the sand so Mom could cook fish and grits on the Coleman stove for breakfast. We would take the canoe out in waist deep river water where there was a nice clear sandy bottom to clam. You walked along hanging on to the canoe with one hand and feeling in the sand with your toes for clams. If you found one, you would reach down and coax it out of the sand and throw it in the canoe. These would be used to make clam chowder. My dad loved to make turtle soup on the rare occasion that he caught one. He said he wouldn't waste it on kids, so it was off limits for us.
Of course, there were a few rafts and makeshift boats that got constructed out of this and that and were pushed around the shallows with poles or oars. If the ocean was calm, we would take the canoe out and that was very exciting, as you might see rays or turtles and even sharks when the water was clear.
A Spanish galleon was discovered right off shore from our cabin, and in 1965 a photograph of the front steps covered in gold coins and jewelry was published in National Geographic, along with an article DROWNED GALLEONS YEILD SPANISH GOLD written by Kip Wagner. Part of the salvage group led by Kip Wagner was Doctor Kelso, a medical doctor and historian who was friends with my father. We sold the cabin to them for a base of operations, as our privacy was gone after the wreck was found. We would wake up to find people outside the cabin with metal detectors and sand sifters looking for treasure. My father's friends ended up giving him a bunch of coins and my mother had a gold coin dated 1714 made into a necklace. All us kids got a piece if eight, as the unevenly shaped, 'struck' silver coins were called. I still have mine.
The house in Riomar was an old Spanish stucco on Painted Bunting Lane. Riomar would be deserted in the summer, and to amuse ourselves we kids built elaborate forts on what is now Memorial Island. We used the canoe to get to it as there was no bridge at the time. We could stash the canoe at the side of the river, or in the sea oats at the beach, and no one would take it. We also built tiki huts and fire pits on the beach. I had the secret pleasure of climbing on the roofs of the deserted houses. After careful bicycle surveillance to determine that it was indeed empty, I would hide the bike and try to figure out a way to get onto the roof. Either a trellis or a tree nearby usually made it possible. I know, in this age of anxiety, you are wondering where our mother was. But I thank the universe I wasn't pen raised!
Before a hurricane came, the land crabs would move to higher ground by the tens of thousands, sensing the drop in barometric pressure. A1A would be covered in them, shining in the headlights. My mother wouldn't evacuate for the hurricane. She said the house had been there a long time and she had faith in it. There would be an air of intense excitement as the wind mounted and the power went out. The kerosene lanterns were lit and the weather radio would be giving a frantic account of the storm's progress. After the worst of the storm had passed, we were let out and we felt we owned the whole beach side as no one else was around. We rode our bikes, with water up to the hubs, down Ocean Drive, braving the elements, looking at the wild waves and feeling exultant.
Even though Vero has changed since then, the experience of growing up in this little coastal town gave me a solid feel for the place, and my paintings describing it have a unique authenticity as a result.
Now I live, once again in Vero, in the woods, in an architect- designed Florida house from the 50's, the perfect artist's retreat. When the weather is nice, I pack up and go painting at some of my old haunts on the island, trying to capture the particular magic that is Vero Beach.
It is hard to imagine the charm of Vero in the 50's, but it was enough to persuade my parents to move here from California. It was possible to wait at an intersection as a turtle or egret crossed nonchalantly in front of the car. Huge Australian pines shaded Ocean Drive with a 60 ft. arch. The Driftwood Inn was there along with a few other motels sporting verandas and banana trees. Our family moved here in 1952. My parents had been searching for a warm climate, as my father had arthritis. He was a medical doctor who became the first surgery specialist in Vero Beach. After living a few years on Acacia Road, we moved into a big two-story house in Riomar, built the same year as my mother was born, 1920. The neighborhood was a paradise for kids. We always had something interesting to do, whether it was running on the sand roads behind the little mosquito trucks with their dense fog billowing out behind, or driving the beach at full moon in a beach buggy looking for sea turtles laying their egg.
My parents had built a summer cabin down close to where the Sebastian River flowed into the ocean, before there was a bridge across that inlet. The bridge over the Indian River, connecting Wabasso to Jungle Trail on the barrier island, was narrow and only a few feet off the water. Its wooden planks made a racket as you passed over, and it felt very daring to cross it at a high tide. Jungle Trail was a wallowing sand track and getting the car stuck in the sand was a common occurrence. The narrow strip before the inlet, now called Ampersand or Clam Beach, was a wild place full of birds, animals and fish. There was only one other house on that spit of land, owned by Florida crackers who went by the collective and colorful name of" Cotton and Them".
I remember having to leap over a coral snake while running down the path to the river, and the fear and fascination of watching a big yellow chicken snake climb a palm tree. A turtle's nest hatched close to the cabin one day and we dug pools at the water’s edge and tried to keep the little ones in the pools all day. The gulls were circling and we felt the sharks and big fish were waiting for them to start swimming. So, we thought if we kept them safe until dusk, they would have a better chance at survival. it was a hard job for a little kid and a serious one.
We would see all kinds of sea life washed up on the beach, from gannets to gravid turtles, as well as little bits of sponges, sea fans, star fish, sand dollars, skate and conch egg cases too. The reefs were full of lobster, sea cucumbers, urchins and fish. Dad would take the boat off shore when the blues were running and chum the water with cod liver oil. You would catch a fish as soon as you threw the bait in the water and just got worn out catching fish. I remember standing in the shallows of very clear ocean water on a calm day and having a stream of tiny silver fish cleanly part around me as they swam parallel to the shore. The stream of fish would seem to be endless and it was a thrill to have them streaming all around you. Occasionally you would see a small shark in a wave and that would scare the piss out of you! We had huge inner tubes from tractor tires that several kids could float on at once. If the wind was just right you could start rolling one down the beach and have to run like crazy to keep up with it.
We would sometimes go flounder gigging in the river at night. You would walk along in the shallows holding a kerosene lantern in one hand and a gig in the other, trying to spot a flounder laying camouflaged in the sand. They would lay in the sand and ruffle their side fins to cover their margins with sand until they disappeared in a soft hump and were very hard to spot. We would also chase mullet trapped in the shallows by little sand bars at low tide, trying to stun them with a stick and throw them up on the sand so Mom could cook fish and grits on the Coleman stove for breakfast. We would take the canoe out in waist deep river water where there was a nice clear sandy bottom to clam. You walked along hanging on to the canoe with one hand and feeling in the sand with your toes for clams. If you found one, you would reach down and coax it out of the sand and throw it in the canoe. These would be used to make clam chowder. My dad loved to make turtle soup on the rare occasion that he caught one. He said he wouldn't waste it on kids, so it was off limits for us.
Of course, there were a few rafts and makeshift boats that got constructed out of this and that and were pushed around the shallows with poles or oars. If the ocean was calm, we would take the canoe out and that was very exciting, as you might see rays or turtles and even sharks when the water was clear.
A Spanish galleon was discovered right off shore from our cabin, and in 1965 a photograph of the front steps covered in gold coins and jewelry was published in National Geographic, along with an article DROWNED GALLEONS YEILD SPANISH GOLD written by Kip Wagner. Part of the salvage group led by Kip Wagner was Doctor Kelso, a medical doctor and historian who was friends with my father. We sold the cabin to them for a base of operations, as our privacy was gone after the wreck was found. We would wake up to find people outside the cabin with metal detectors and sand sifters looking for treasure. My father's friends ended up giving him a bunch of coins and my mother had a gold coin dated 1714 made into a necklace. All us kids got a piece if eight, as the unevenly shaped, 'struck' silver coins were called. I still have mine.
The house in Riomar was an old Spanish stucco on Painted Bunting Lane. Riomar would be deserted in the summer, and to amuse ourselves we kids built elaborate forts on what is now Memorial Island. We used the canoe to get to it as there was no bridge at the time. We could stash the canoe at the side of the river, or in the sea oats at the beach, and no one would take it. We also built tiki huts and fire pits on the beach. I had the secret pleasure of climbing on the roofs of the deserted houses. After careful bicycle surveillance to determine that it was indeed empty, I would hide the bike and try to figure out a way to get onto the roof. Either a trellis or a tree nearby usually made it possible. I know, in this age of anxiety, you are wondering where our mother was. But I thank the universe I wasn't pen raised!
Before a hurricane came, the land crabs would move to higher ground by the tens of thousands, sensing the drop in barometric pressure. A1A would be covered in them, shining in the headlights. My mother wouldn't evacuate for the hurricane. She said the house had been there a long time and she had faith in it. There would be an air of intense excitement as the wind mounted and the power went out. The kerosene lanterns were lit and the weather radio would be giving a frantic account of the storm's progress. After the worst of the storm had passed, we were let out and we felt we owned the whole beach side as no one else was around. We rode our bikes, with water up to the hubs, down Ocean Drive, braving the elements, looking at the wild waves and feeling exultant.
Even though Vero has changed since then, the experience of growing up in this little coastal town gave me a solid feel for the place, and my paintings describing it have a unique authenticity as a result.
Now I live, once again in Vero, in the woods, in an architect- designed Florida house from the 50's, the perfect artist's retreat. When the weather is nice, I pack up and go painting at some of my old haunts on the island, trying to capture the particular magic that is Vero Beach.
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All Copyrighted 2009-2024 by Rene Guerin
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