New and Past Projects
3/28/2025
Mini Series
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An online exhibit of digital work from November 2023 dedicated to the confused, sympathetic, uncertain, hurt, brave, unsure, lost, rebellious, ostracized, ridiculed, neglected, abused, curious, manipulated, adventurous, romantic, misaligned, and courageous.
3/5/2025
Color Me
Free Download
This original design by RenO is now available for free!!! Coloring can be a relaxing and mediative activity that can reduce anxiety, promote mindfulness, and help tap into one's creativity. Download and color me at home. When you are finished, send us a jpg of your completed piece and we might post you on this site. Enjoy :)
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2/28/2025
New Online Series
A series of new work illuminating the otherness hidden behind layers of perception. Transformed by vibrations and impulses these altered frequencies and wavelengths are never seen. They reside somewhere closer to our souls than our physical bodies.
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1/31/2025
Framed Digital Series
​The "Alternative Gardens" Series is composed of 10 works depicting flowers in similar but different ways through the process of digital and manual manipulations. The series has a beginning point where each finished, numbered piece evolves subtly into the next number in series by manipulating color and composition creating a new iteration. Additive and subtractive impulses were allowed to change or distort the image just as an oil painter decides to include or omit from the final painting. Here in this series, RenO illustrates the fluid nature of digital art that replaces the grit and grime of manipulating oil and acrylic and leads us to the questions of the validity of art and it's definitions. More importantly, he's concerned with the question ... Can Art still move our souls when we take away realities of physical paint like texture and impasto? Or is computer derived expression less emotional, less real? This modern day take of a classical theme can be seen as unique still lifes or a birds- eye view.
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12/28/2024
Art and Music
Telecaster Sx Rebuild and Customization
One of those projects you always wanted to do. Here's how I did it with a dented and scratched Telecaster Sx Vintage Series in Daphne Blue.
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11/15/2024
A Study of Line Series
A Study of Line: Somewhere From the Unconscious
In this series of drawings from a 2013 journal of 60 sketches executed between June and September, the entries show a free flowing style of contour. Many of the drawings are “One Liners” and others seem to straddle between just shapes and then into landscapes slowly pushing into a different reality. There is a side note included on one page reminding to “Treat computer files like silkscreens or stencils” with “solid blocks of color” in parentheses. This recorded idea illuminates a possible intention for the series. Hinting that the drawings were originally intended to be translated into another medium. The series of drawings tend to bounce between a variety of aesthetics emphasizing squared cubic patterns contrasted with swirled organic designs derived from abstract origins of an unconscious mind.
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10/11/2024
"Beautiful Souls" Group Art Show
​Art has the ability, in some way, to help heal. Whether it is a distraction or clarification of our emotions, it serves as something “other”. By this, I believe, it provides substance other than the sense of loneliness we experience when someone leaves us. The lyrics and melodies of a song might provide answers and soothing sounds to help us through a difficult time. The way someone dances may illustrate the complexities of a traumatic situation. The greater dialogue of art on an abstract level gives rise to tangible concepts rooted in other’s experiences of a similar situation. We all grieve differently. They always say that, but this time I decided to dedicate a piece of art to a specific person whose friendship made a difference in my life.
10/05/2024
"Carnival of Fire" Chicago
A collaborative event including Live performance art with iron, glass, and dance along with a group Art Exhibition located at Vector Custom Fabricating, Chicago, IL.
01/2024
"Lost A Finger Nail"
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Like the camera in the early 1900s, artists can now use digital paint programs to help them express themselves with much more ease. This exhibit of portraits by RenO Franczek is a result of digital and hand drawing as well as digital coloring, texturing and image manipulation. All images now can be changed by the aid of color filters and warping tools with endless opportunity.
12/2023
"Digital Art Process"
The Making of "It's Up There" 2023
Here a chronological video of all steps needed to draw and color this fun piece created by RenO in late 2023. It's not in real-time but sped up to under 4 minutes accompanied with a musical demo entitled "Summit" recorded 1/25/2015. Take a look at this insider view of art making done on an Apple Ipad with Procreate software in hopes that you are inspired to make or color your own works of art.
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11/6 -11/29/2020
Art Exhibit - J2 Gallery
The Jackson Junge Gallery presents FLOWERS OF THE PANDEMIC, its fifth solo exhibition of 2020. The exhibition features seven original paintings by local RenO Franczek and curated by Assistant Gallery Director Kaitlyn Miller.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of every individual on the planet. To say that human kind has been overburdened by the paradigm of chaos would be true, but at this moment in time, to strive for perfection would be detrimental to one’s psyche. It is RenO’s thought that we must understand how to work and survive within this context and to not be burdened by the chaos, but work within this, to compose and achieve our goals. RenO explains, “these paintings are justification to overcome these obstacles with a unique set of compositions and relations of materials, colors, shapes and applications. Chaos or perfection? Maybe neither, except a little more reliance on the unknown.”
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06/2020
OnekO EP 2 Release
If you like different music with a variety of sounds give this one a listen from this Chicago alternative band....
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4/20/2020
Transfer Series With Video
From April 2020, RenO takes us on a down and dirty process of creating art with minimal supplies and open intentions. Seven works on paper with acrylic paint composed in an abstract manner combined with a silkscreen transfer of a drawing from 2012.
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5/8/2018
Interview with Voyage Chicago
7/21/2007
Art Show at The Silver Room, Chicago
An all wood series by RenO exhibited at 1302 N. Milwaukee with work by DJ Shelly J, Revise, and DEV.
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11/28/2006
Artist Note on Painting
"When I began painting--for no other reason than to paint--after having expressed myself for years in drawings and sketches in my journals, I was reminded of the joys of discovery. My mindset shifted, concepts twisted, and the schemas of my work overlapped."
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11/28/2006
Artist Note on Drawing
"To me drawing is medicine. Drawing helps me release pent-up worries and emotions during times of high stress and confusion as it helps me put a face on the stressors I encounter."
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