Georgia Tacey sits down with Sunbury artist Renee Broders in her home studio as she chats about her artistic process, favourite pieces and her recent exhibition where her artwork was projected onto the site of Town Hall Broadmeadows for the Hume Winter Lights Festival.
Walking into Renee Broders’ home studio is like taking a step inside her mind.
Eclectic, bright and colourful, just like the bright pink glasses perched on her face.
Every inch of the small room is filled to the brim. Art supplies, trinkets, finished projects and ones she’s still tinkering with cover the space.
This is her mind, heart and soul, bared on display.
“I think if it was empty, I would feel lost,” Broders said.
“It’s a place where I go to feel found.
“It’s my heart, my home, but then sometimes I don’t want to come out here. I avoid it all together because it’s too much.”
These four walls are brimming with energy and creativity, and Broders thinks it might just be at capacity.
“I feel like I’m almost suffocating out here a little bit, but this for me is probably my favourite place to be at the same time,” she said.
“You just sort of suffer for your own love, I suppose.”
Art has always called to Broders. From as young as five she was drawing, painting and making her mark on the world through her art.
“I surround myself with as much creativity as I can, and I find that’s kind of where my heart lies. I’m a creative at heart,” she said.
At university, she studied print making and painting, thinking this was where her life would take her as an etcher, before painting took over.
“I think that’s part of the creative journey,” Broders said.
“You kind of fall into things and then you fall out of things, and if you take that sort of mindset, you’ll learn a lot more, I think, as an artist because you don’t get trapped.”
Now at 49, Broders is a mum-of-two, living with her husband and two sausage dogs in Sunbury, with a purpose-built home studio nestled in her backyard.
Known for her bright, bold, striking colours, abstract pieces and collages, Broders’ artwork steps into people’s mind and dives into emotion.
Represented by national group Studio Gallery Group, her artwork has been exhibited across the country. While she has had many career highlights, like being the featured artist of the 2023 Affordable Art Fair in Sydney, a mention in Vogue and multiple award recognitions, she said she takes all the big things in with the small.
One of the big will be her first solo exhibition with Studio Gallery Group which will be held in Sydney, featuring many of her paintings and some collage pieces.
And something smaller in her community, she plans to offer collage classes for those interested in learning more about the art.
Broders has exhibited all over Australia, but most recently was a part of an event close to home.
As one of the featured artists in the Hume Winter Lights Festival, Broders wowed the crowds with her whimsical interactive exhibition titled ‘Paper Dreams’.
“The piece was an animated and interactive digital collage, where I put together backgrounds with objects, all cut out of vintage paper, and then little characters that I make on my phone … were all sort of put together,” she said.
“Anybody that wanted to could come up and interact with the projection by using a software that was set up, so it became something that people could change and manipulate whilst it was playing out on the wall.”
Broders took inspiration from her daily commute to work and the characters you find on the train.
“It was just about life’s journey and just how as you travel along through your day, you see all sorts of weird things and a lot was inspired by riding the train,” she said.
She said the piece was really well received, with over 5000 people attending the festival and catching a glimpse of her creation. To bring it to life, she worked with Nicholas Marriott and Sean Healy, an animator and software engineer.
“It was my first projection, and hopefully it will lead to more of the same because I think collage is a really interesting medium to work with, and it’s really good for storytelling,” she said.
“And when you work with an animator and a software designer you definitely can come up with pretty spectacular results.”
In her long-spanning career, there have been many stand out pieces, with many tackling mental health, emotions and societal issues.
One piece on display in her studio is one of Jeni Haynes, a Queensland woman who has over 2000 personalities.
Broders said after watching a 60 Minutes episode on Haynes, she reached out to her through Facebook, which resulted in her flying up to Queensland twice and staying with her, creating two pieces of art.
“Getting to know Jeni was probably the coolest part of that,” she said.
In Haynes’ mind, every decision she makes is voted on by all her personalities, which prompted her to respond to Broders message, saying “Ttwo and a half thousand hands had come up to say yes, they wanted me to paint them”.
Broders said she uses a lot of negative space in her art, with the story told through intricate, small details. At the core of her process is her wanting to share the inner workings of people’s minds with the world.
“I’ve got a feeling of wanting to tell stories about people’s lives and what’s important and embrace diversity, embrace change and challenge. All of those things are really important to me,” she said.
“Not everyone is going to love what you do and no one appeals to everybody. But I suppose you have to appeal more to yourself and the others will come.”
Search @arts7_5 on Instagram to find more for Broders’ work.
