Bio

Renée Céleste Flanders is a St. Louis-based artist whose practice encompasses painting, drawing, mixed media, assemblage, and found objects. Known for bold, focused compositions and unexpected combinations of images, objects, and materials, Flanders creates work that is immediate in appearance yet layered in meaning.

Realism is fundamental to the work, extending from direct observation to the incorporation of natural and manufactured materials such as feathers, rocks, plant material, bones, and teeth, alongside glass, mirrors and found fragments. Through alteration, destruction, and reconstruction, Flanders’ process echoes cycles of death and regeneration in nature.

Familiar forms carry emotional and symbolic associations that can shift through pareidolia and animistic suggestion, allowing the ordinary to assume another life or reality. These approaches offer the viewer tools for exploring change and renewal.

Education

1980-1981: Painting/MFA, Fontbonne University, St. Louis, MO USA
1976-1978: Painting/Graduate Studies, Washington University, St. Louis, MO USA
1970-1973: Drawing Studies, Washington University, St. Louis, MO USA

Selected exhibitions

2026, O.S.D. 1, St. Louis, MO USA  [upcoming]
2026, Small Works Invitational, Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, MO USA
2026, Beyond the Horizon, Margaret Harrell Art Museum, Poplar Bluff, MO USA
2026, Bricolage: Art from the Unexpected, Gallery at the Library, Hermann, MO USA
2025, GASP, Art Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO USA
2024, Memento Mori, Art Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO USA
2024, The Alumni Show, Fontbonne University Fine Art Gallery, St. Louis, MO USA
2024, Window to the Soul, Art Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO USA 
2005, Fortune: Then and Now, Everbank Gallery, St. Louis, MO USA
2004, Fortune: Then and Now, The Gallery at the Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis, MO USA
2003, Honor Awards, Art Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO USA
2002, Retrospective (Solo Show), Fleischmann Hillard, St. Louis, MO USA
2002, From Black to White, Art Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO USA 
1994, Small Works, Art Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO USA
1990, Mostra, Palazzo Vagnotti, Cortona, Italy 
1986, Artists From Fortune, Center for Contemporary Arts, St. Louis, MO USA 
1983, Five Artists, The Junior League of Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO USA
1981, First Annual Fortune Artists Open, Fortune Interiors, St. Louis, MO USA
1981, MFA Thesis Show, Fine Art Gallery at Fontbonne University, St. Louis, MO USA 
1980, Multi Media Screen Show, Mark Twain Cooperative Gallery, St. Louis, MO USA 
1979, Photography Now, University City Library Gallery, St. Louis, MO USA 
1979, Fortune Group Show, Mark Twain Cooperative Gallery, St. Louis, MO USA
1978, Fortune Group Show, Mark Twain Cooperative Gallery, St. Louis, MO USA
1976, Graduate Work, Schoenberg Gallery at Washington University, St. Louis, MO USA 
1974, BFA Thesis Show, Fine Art Gallery at Fontbonne University, St. Louis, MO USA 

Residencies

1990, Artist in Residence, University of Georgia, Cortona, Italy

Selected collections

Mark Twain Bancshares, St. Louis, MO USA
Fleischman Hillard, St. Louis, MO USA

Renée Céleste Flanders is collected by various private collectors in national and international private collections.

Awards

2003, Honor Awards (finalist), Art Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO USA
2002, Award of excellence (selected), Art Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO USA
1979, Merit award (winner), University City Library Gallery, St. Louis, MO USA
1970-1974: Painting/BFA (Art Award Scholarship), Fontbonne University, St. Louis, MO USA

Selected press

Mike Sampson, Fortune Then and Now on KWMU-FM 90.7 Saint Louis on the Air, 2005 

Deb Peterson, Banking on Art in the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, 2005
David Bonetti, Looking Back at the Good Fortune of Artists who Worked for the Bank in the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, 2005
Anne Murphy, Fortune Then and Now…Thinking Outside the Box in The Healthy Planet, 2005
David Bonetti, Fortune Telling in the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, 2004
April Gibbs and Jen Meyer, Fortune Smiles Again in Sauce Magazine, 2005
Kara Beightel, The Fortune Few Dozen in West End Word, 2005

Professional experience

1992: Studio Art Teacher, Saint Louis Country Day School, St. Louis, MO USA
1985: Assistant to the Director, Art Saint Louis II, St. Louis, MO USA
1984: Assistant to the Director, Art Saint Louis I, St. Louis, MO USA
1984: Chief Archaeological Draftsperson, Odyssey Project, Ithaca, Greece