all ABOUT RENKO…

Patrick “RENKO” Conner is a Detroit based artist whose work consists of vibrant

nostalgic character paintings on top of a bricolage of print media backgrounds. He

started painting as a hobby to release creative energy when he moved to Detroit

in 2015, but soon realized he had a passion for what he was making. From the

beginning, his subject matter has been anything that would bring joy to the

creative process, with an emphasis on timeless cartoon characters. He enjoys

making the focal point of his paintings something that will elicit a cheerful intrinsic

memory for its viewers and bring a smile to their faces.

The background of his art aims to evoke a similar feeling, while being more

complex in nature. He likes to include anything that he finds fascinating and

disguising it in a way that doesn’t naturally pop out at you. The busyness of the

background hides multiple images which take time to fully discover. He believes

art is like a good movie- you should be able to notice something new and exciting

every time you view it.

Patrick’s pseudonym is RENKO, inspired by Ivan Renko, the fictitious Yugoslavian

basketball player made up by legendary Indiana University basketball coach,

Bobby Knight. After the media started writing articles about how good of a player

Renko was, even stating they had seen tapes of him playing, Knight came clean

that his tall tale was false. He did all of this to prove a point- that the media has no

idea what they’re talking about.