Renée Estée

COMA is pleased to present a solo exhibition, titled ‘Choral Ode‘, by New York-based artist Renée Estée (b. 1993), on view 14 July – 19 August in the Darlinghurst Gallery. This is the artist’s first solo presentation with COMA.

Utilising painting as a gateway to otherworldly realms, Renée Estée negotiates spaces of correspondence and transition, liminal thresholds between life and death. Drawing parallels to Greek Mythology, where protagonists undertake perilous journeys to bring back loved ones, these paintings contemplate the possibility of traversing the afterlife and returning with people, stories, and messages. Each artwork contributes to a larger chorus, echoing the strophe, antistrophe, and epode of a Grecian choral ode—an ode sung by the chorus, transitioning from one side of the stage to the other.

At the heart of this body of work is an elegiac aura—love letters, poems, and farewells. The inclusion of numbers, birth dates, and hours, momentarily ground us in the reality of linear existence, emphasising passages and markers of time that direct and indicate the way that we mourn and remember. Physically the maze-like structure of the presentation intends to disorient and collapses sequential readings of these numbers and figures, suggesting that time is in fact a construct, and life, death and existence fall into each other. 

bodies of water serve as entrances to the homes inhabited by spirits. As such, people perceive these places as liminal zones between their world and the spirit world where the possibility of death was imagined to lurk.

– Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies pg. 33

Choral Ode contemplates the notion of souls dwelling beneath the earth, while also considering the presence of angels, ghosts, and spirits residing above us. The repeated imagery of small tombstones across the canvas symbolises the portals, archways, entryways, windows, and doorways that Estée employs to connect us to these omnipresent sentients and lead us to other spaces, both physical and metaphorical. Some paintings evoke a sense of being below ground, while others suggest rising up, floating, or flying above. This feeling is mirrored by the undulating formation of the paintings in the space, as they rise and fall at different levels, so that we are below, above and within the works all at once. 

Final Wish – I wanted the text to the right of the painting to read both as someone’s final wish or final last words, as well as a lament for the person gone. ‘Lay me where the flowers grow. I see wings when I think of you, maybe flowers have wings too. I grow flowers, I pick flowers, I lay flowers down, I name flowers after you.’

– Renée Estée

The exhibition is somewhat shrine-like for Estée, as small charms, pearls, and lace adorn the surfaces of the paintings in acts of commemoration and memorialisation. Lace, pearls, and other keepsakes from childhood serve as threads that connect the artist’s personal history and familial narratives, creating a visual archive of collective memory.

Notably, these works explore farewells not only to individuals but also to spaces and environments. The artist’s experience changing geographical locations naturally inspired reflections on the concept of home and the interplay of distance and connection. The Australian landscape took on a newly profound significance—a marker of personal history and identity. Choral Ode is a reflection of the myths and stories we create as a result of loss, contemplating the impermanence of existence and the beauty of memory.