Draft:Renell Medrano

Renell Medrano is a New York based documentary photographer and director born and raised in the Bronx. She also has a Dominican Republic background and she reflects these two sides of her identity a lot through her work. Medrano has gone from uploading her work to sites such as Tumblr and Instagram after graduating from university to working with international brands such as Vogue, Prada, Jimmy Choo, Nike, Calvin Klein, Fenty Beauty and Chanel and a current following of 808k on Instagram.

Early life

Medrano's interest for photography began at 14 as she started shooting friends and family as well as individuals in her local environment, until she was bought her first DSLR camera at 15. She went on to study at Parsons School of Design in New York where she carried out her thesis project "Untitled Youth," which documents a group of young girls, who she followed and documented for two years and their everyday endeavours in the Bronx. She earned her BFA from Parsons in 2014 and won the New York Times Lens Blog Award for this project. Due to growing up in the Bronx, Medrano's work naturally documents regular people who come from similar environments as her as this is what inspires her. She says "you wouldn't think the people and places I was around were beautiful, but for me, I saw beauty in that rawness, and I take that everywhere with me."

Photography

Medrano spent a lot of her childhood summers in the Dominican Republic, where her relatives are situated, which influenced her photography project “Pampara”. This was carried out in 2019 in collaboration with WePresent and was first exhibited in London's Gallery Rosenfeld. She created extravagant scenes that reference the culture as well as documenting natural moments around the area where her family are from. A lot of this series includes young people on the streets of the Caribbean island as she says it feels reminiscent of her early years and shows the community of the upbeat country. Also in 2019, Medrano directed and shot the album cover for Kendrick Lamar's album "Mr Morale & the Big Steppers" which gained Medrano a lot of traction. Along with Lamar, Medrano has produced work for a lot of largely known celebrities, mostly hip-hop and r&b artists such as Skepta, Andre 3000, Tyler the Creator, Jay-Z, Solange and Playboy Carti, but also figures such as Serena Williams for magazines such as Harper's Bazaar,, i-D GQ, Allure, Dazed and W Magazine. A lot of Medrano's work combines daring fashion with culture as well as political inclusivity.

Directing

Medrano's short film named Peluca, meaning "wig" in Spanish, was directed in 2019 with Thuan Tran, a music video director. This was her first solo show, displayed at MILK Studios in New York on September 15th 2019 which is where her graduate thesis project “Untitled Youth” was also exhibited five years prior. The film is accompanied by photography, including imagery of hair salons and their customers around the Bronx. It represents the important presence of wigs in black and Hispanic culture, especially in Medrano's hometown.

Exhibitions

Medrano has been a part of group exhibitions alongside her solo shows, displayed in many venues such as The Black Vanguard; shown in Saatchi Gallery, UK, Sarasota Art Museum, Florida, US, Museum of the African Diaspora, California, US, Museum of the African Diaspora, California, USA, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, US, Aperture Foundation, New York, US.