Biography
Renold Laurent is a Haitian artist currently based in Cambridge, MA. His dynamic and expressive paintings are rooted in imagined dialogue with his audience and between mixed media, cultural history, the present, and our collective future. He was born in Source Bretoux, a village at the foot of the Marbial Valley—a few kilometers from the city of Jacmel, Haiti. At the age of ten, Rénold began to draw and paint under the direction of his father, Maccène Laurent, a primitivist artist. Very early, he was inspired by the cultural life of his rural environment, including Rara festival music, Carnival, and the architecture of Jacmel.
In 1995, in his quest to continue improving his painting techniques, he took many trips to Jacmel and Port-au-Prince to open his mind and learn more about other artists. It was through the books and catalogs of the Alliance Française library in Jacmel that he began to discover the works of Manet, Cézanne, Monet, Daly, Kandinsky, Klee, Pollock, and the names of great Haitian painters such as Hypolite, Tiga, Cédor, and Lazard; these research trips had a profound impact on his artwork.
A few years later, he incorporated new perspectives and techniques into his paintings. He considers abstract painting to be the most expressive way to explore the extraordinary powers of the imagination. Laurent has collaborated with several cultural institutions in Haiti, and his paintings have been exhibited in Haiti, USA, France, and others.
Artist Statement
Renold Laurent is a Haitian artist whose practice explores memory, migration, displacement, and cultural resilience through painting, collage, and mixed media. Drawing from Haitian history, personal experience, and the histories embedded in places and materials, Laurent builds layered abstract works from painting, reclaimed fabrics, pigments, charcoal, earth, paper, and other found materials. These materials become witnesses, carrying traces of lives, journeys, loss, resistance, and survival.
Through abstraction, texture, and material accumulation, Laurent investigates how histories persist in the body, in objects, and in the landscape. His work asks how art can recover suppressed memories, challenge inherited narratives, and transform experiences of displacement into new forms of belonging.
Renold Laurent's studio in 2023.
Cambridge MA. 2026
Jacmel, Haiti. 2016
Studio
Jacmel, Haiti. 2002
Exhibitions
Individual Exhibition:
2024 - "Vibration of Colors", Lightspace Gallery at the International Art Museum of America (IAMA). San Francisco, CA. June 14, July 31.
2019 - “Memory Work”, Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University.; February 15 - May 10.
2018 - "Material Consequences", Mary L. Fifield Gallery at Bunker Hill Community College, Boston, MA; May 22–July 27.
2015 - "Abstraction and Expression", Brazil/Haiti Cultural Center, Petionville, Haiti, April 10–30.
2014 - "Abstraction and Expression", Casa del Joven Creador, Santiago, Cuba; July 3–12.
2011 - Individual Exhibition at the Brazil/Haiti Cultural Center, Haiti, July 12 -August 10.
2008 - "New Perspectives and Techniques", Centre d’Art, Port-au-Prince, Haiti; April 25–May 15.
2006 - Individual Exhibition at the French Cultural Center, Jacmel, Haiti, April 28–May 5.
Group Exhibition:
2023 - Documentary and digital exhibition "This Life: Black Life in the Time of Now" by the Miami Museum of the African Diaspora, Miami MOCAAD, December.
2022 - “Racial Slavery, Marronage & Freedom” - Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University; September 23, February 25.
2017 - “Haiti aux Grands Voisins,” organized by Haiti Futur and Haiti Action Artistes; Paris, France; June 21–25.
2013 - “Haitian Art in Transit,” Logan Airport, Boston, MA; January–March.
2012 - "Mémoire d’une ville imaginaire", Nantes, France, janvier–février.
2011 - "Quand Nos Pinceaux ont Tremblé". Boston City Hall; Boston, MA; January-March.
2005 - “Noël vu par les peintres,” The Haitian Art Museum; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; December-January.
2005 - “Tendance de la jeune peinture haïtienne,” the Haitian Art Museum; Port-au-Prince, Haiti; May–September.
2003 - Group Exhibition at the French Cultural Center, Jacmel, Haiti. 28 April- 6 May
2002 - Watercolor International Biennal of Mexico, The Watercolor Museum, Mexico City, Mexico; November–December.
1996 - “Femme Jardin,” the Municipal Library of Jacmel, Jacmel, Haiti. 25 April-5 May
Award
2019 - In 2019, he received the Heimark Artist Residence Award from the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University.
1998 – 1st Prize, French Cultural Center Painting Contest (Jacmel 300th Anniversary).