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Home » Faculty/Staff Directory » Faculty Profile » Billy Renkl
Billy Renkl

William Renkl

Professor

Art + Design

  • BFA: Auburn University, Visual Communications (Illustration and Graphic Design)
  • MFA: University of South Carolina, Drawing
I don’t remember ever not wanting to make art. It was the only thing I was remotely good at as a kid – I was a disaster at sports, and academics were often a challenge. In high school I assumed I’d do something else as a career, though – only nothing else ever came to mind. When it came time to pick a college major I sort of felt like it had already picked me.
 
I have a degree in visual communications from Auburn University, and went to the University of South Carolina for graduate school in drawing.
 
Really, I’m happy to illustrate and also make work for gallery exhibition, both. It’s gratifying to have *this* and *this* collide in a collage, and see what happens, and if it is what I expected. It mostly doesn’t matter where the problem comes from. I’m always grateful for a chance to collaborate with clients.
Both my studio work and my work for clients as an illustrator focus on analog collage. I'm interested in cooperating with the history of the materials I use, and in their lives in the physical world before they arrived at my work table.
Numerous editorial illustrations for clients like The New York Times, Spirit (SouthWest Airlines in-flight magazine); Milkweed Press, Vermont Quarterly (The University of Vermont), Vanderbilt University, Rigby, Parnassus Books, Klutz, etc.
  • Numerous solo exhibitions, including shows at The Cumberland Gallery (Nashville, TN), Manifest Drawing Center (Cincinnati, OH), The Jule Collins Smith Museum (Auburn, AL), Southside Gallery (Oxford, MS), Taylor-Bercier Fina Art (New Orleans), etc.
  • Illustrations for the picture book When You Breathe, Cameron Kids, Petaluma CA (text by Diana Farid)
  • Work included in American Illustration, Communication Arts, 3X3, Creative Quarterly, and The Society of Illustrators' Annual
  • See more at www.billyrenkl.com