Looking Too Closely: Marge Rendell on Obsession, Repetition, and Everyday Images
- Sfumato Art Creatives
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Marge Rendell (b. 1998) is a New York–based artist whose practice explores repetition, perception, and the visual language of contemporary culture. Working across painting, printmaking, and experimental processes, she investigates how familiar images and symbols are constructed, circulated, and consumed. Drawing inspiration from internet culture, advertising, stock photography, and everyday objects, Rendell transforms commonplace imagery into works that invite closer examination. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020 and has exhibited nationally in solo and group exhibitions, including presentations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Syracuse.
Looking Too Closely: Obsession, Repetition, and the Poetry of Everyday Images
Some artists search widely for inspiration. Marge Rendell prefers to stay with a single idea until it reveals something unexpected.
Whether she is thinking about dots, red apples, stock photographs, or a seemingly impossible technical challenge, her work begins with a fixation. Rather than moving on when curiosity fades, she follows these interests further, allowing repetition and sustained attention to become creative tools.
In this edition of Creative Reflection, Rendell reflects on obsession, internet imagery, and the surprising discoveries that emerge when ordinary things are examined with extraordinary focus.
The World as a Collection of Dots
Recently, Rendell has become fascinated by dots.
At first glance, the dot may seem like one of the simplest visual elements imaginable. Yet the more she considers it, the more she finds it everywhere. Dots form stars in the night sky, pixels on a screen, printed photographs, and even the microscopic structures that make up living organisms.
This realization has led her to experiment with constructing images entirely through dots and CMYK patterns. The process raises questions about translation and perception: How much information can be preserved through repetition? What changes when an image is reduced to its smallest visual components?
For Rendell, these investigations are less about finding answers and more about lingering in the uncertainty.
The Productive Nature of Obsession
Obsession is not simply a theme in Rendell's work—it is a methodology.
She describes every stage of her practice as obsessive, from preparing a surface to repeating marks across an entire composition. This sustained focus allows her to move beyond first impressions and uncover hidden relationships between images, objects, and ideas.
What might initially appear mundane gradually becomes complex. A simple motif gains symbolic weight. An everyday image begins to reveal cultural, historical, and personal associations.
By remaining with a subject longer than expected, Rendell transforms attention itself into a creative act.
Growing Up with the Internet
The visual culture that informs Rendell's work is deeply connected to the digital age.
She is drawn to images that are so familiar they almost disappear: stock photographs, clipart, online listings, reaction graphics, and fragments of internet language. These are images encountered repeatedly, often without conscious notice, yet they quietly shape how contemporary life is experienced and understood.
Rather than treating such imagery as disposable, Rendell approaches it as a kind of cultural archive. Recontextualized within her work, these visual fragments become worthy of scrutiny, revealing layers of meaning hidden beneath their apparent simplicity.
Following the Apple
Rendell's creative process often begins with a thought she cannot shake.
Recently, that thought has been the red apple.
What starts as a single object quickly expands into a web of associations. Popular culture, folklore, advertising, branding, childhood icons, and literary references begin to overlap. Patterns emerge where none seemed to exist before.
The apple becomes more than an apple. It becomes a lens through which broader ideas can be explored.
This willingness to pursue a subject beyond its obvious meaning is central to Rendell's practice. She approaches familiar images not as fixed symbols but as open-ended investigations.
Discovery Through Experimentation
Curiosity frequently pushes Rendell toward unconventional experiments.
Sometimes these experiments begin with a simple question: What would happen if an image appeared somewhere it seemingly shouldn't?
Rather than dismissing such thoughts, she follows them. Technical challenges become opportunities for exploration, and unexpected materials become sites of discovery.
This playful approach allows experimentation to remain central to her practice. The process is often as important as the outcome, with each investigation opening the door to new questions rather than definitive conclusions.
Paying Attention
At its core, Marge Rendell's work is about attention—about what happens when we look longer, think harder, and resist the urge to move on too quickly.
Through repetition, obsession, and a fascination with the overlooked visual language of contemporary life, she reveals the complexity hidden within ordinary things. Her work reminds us that even the most familiar images can become strange, poetic, and endlessly compelling when viewed with enough care.
In a culture defined by speed and constant distraction, Rendell offers an alternative: the possibility that meaning emerges not from looking at more things, but from looking more deeply at the things already around us.
Comments