Avenue Marceau: TRIBUTE TO Chris Ranes

About Chris Ranes
Chris Ranes was born in Warsaw, Poland and raised in Paris, France. She emigrated to America after World War II and had been a resident of Palo Alto, CA since 1968.
Chris began her career as an abstract expressionist painter while living in New York during the 1950's. Her work has always struck a balance between form and content-between both the tangible and intellectual worlds and the formal abstract structure of painting.
Shown here are her most recent works of mixed media pieces that include personal memorabilia and involving auto-radiograms from her daughter Monica's studies at Harvard University, with biological research and DNA experimentation.
She combined art and science in this series, creating an excitement among scientists and the world of art and aesthetics. The DNA theme represents the artist's continual search for universal symbols of human experience and events.
Chris Ranes' works have been exhibited in the US, Canada, France, Italy, and Switzerland.
Chris died of kidney cancer on 1 October 2002 in Palo Alto, CA.

Artist's Statement
Art can be created with the mind, or it can reflect the deepest emotion of the artist. My work encompasses both aspects. All of my paintings start with an idea, a direction, a purpose, but once engaged, the painting takes over, and it is the innermost emotion that emerges. Every painting is a reflection of my personal experience, my observations of life, and my concerns for the future of humanity. My artistic output tends to run in series. Each series may last a short while with merely a few paintings, or as many as thirty paintings. As the world around us is rapidly changing so does my need to explore new statements and emotions.
Past series included Provence, The Window Series, Travels, The Ancient Mariner, Argosy, Apocalypse, and the DNA Series. Each series could be traced to a specific event or emotion: The Window-Series, Ancient Mariner, and Argosy, were inspired by my travels to Europe and Mexico, The Human Condition Series dealt with vanished cultures, old civilizations, present human development, and man's reaching for the stars. The DNA Series was fueled by my daughter's work in Molecular Biology and the many Biotech companies emerging in "Silicon Valley" in California, bringing with them promise for humankind. This series peered into the "cell" through the artist's minds eye.
My series, Visions and Vistas, were inspired by the visual landscapes of California, and the rapid changes and transformations occurring. Immigration and in-migration continue to alter the landscape. Man's urban pressures are in continuous conflict with nature's fragile ecological balance. Today's challenge is to find ways for man to live in harmony with nature. Sometimes, man appears to be losing this challenge when the quality of life diminishes.
Here, in our own "Silicon Valley", a great agricultural basin has been replaced by a greater industrial base. The semi-conductor industry is now being joined by the biotech industry. Each brings such promise for man, but the price to the environment is high. There is conflict, there is harmony; there is man made beauty, there is pollution; there is opportunity and there is hope. My paintings reflect these emotional impacts and dynamics.

Chris Ranes