A fourth generation Houstonian, Patrick Renner has been established in his hometown’s art scene for over two decades. Returning to the project this year, his True North 2016 installation, “harbinger,” was an otherworldly work of imaginative and architectural genius. For 2024, Renner brings us “dauber”—a meditation on the structures built by the garden-beneficial mud dauber wasp. His stylized “nest” is constructed with—instead of mud—a combination of architectural refuse and brightly colored wooden strips from past projects—dismantled and reconfigured into the new form. One side of the nest’s organic silhouette is considered the planar facet—implying it might have been originally built on the angling surface of another form that is now absent.

Renner attended the famed High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Houston, earned a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. An art educator from 2006-16, Renner led his students at Sharpstown International School to win prizes for their Houston Art Car Parade entries, including First Place Best School category in 2016. His solo and group exhibitions include Art League Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, DiverseWorks, Houston, Locke Surls Center for Arts and Nature, Cleveland, Galveston Arts Center, Kirksey Architecture, Houston, Lawndale Art Center, Houston, Poissant Gallery, Houston, and Redbud Arts Center, Houston. Renner was named 2016 Artist of the Year by American Institute of Architects, Houston, and has won multiple prizes, including first place, in Lawndale Art Center’s The Big Show. His traffic-stopping “Funnel Tunnel”—the renowned 180-foot-long civic art sculpture snaking its way through the esplanade of Montrose Boulevard in 2013-14—was commissioned by Art League Houston and later permanently installed for the city of New Orleans.