studio interview_Ren Light Pan
"People don't understand how ambiguous my own work is to me and how little meaning I assign to things. I don’t work in that way, I’m not a storyteller."
25JULY2025
We handed Ren a disposable camera and asked a few questions
Even though your use of ink creates a physically flat surface, there’s a strong sense of depth in your compositions. What kind of space are you envisioning within these paintings, and how does that imagined space relate back to the studio itself, which in many ways feels like a central subject of your work?
My paintings have always been about space. I think about them like boxes sometimes. In the sense that all rooms are like a window into a box, or sometimes out of a box. (…)
The stretcher bar kind of [suggests] windows into the studio or the window from the gallery into the studio. My idea of what these stretcher bars do is it's [bringing you into the studio] and by studio, then I just start talking about Ren space, like what we were talking about earlier, about what the studio is to me: it’s kinda like the inside of my mind. It’s a little cringe to say, but it is what happens in the studio. (…)
For a lot of these [new work], the space is almost the subject and it’s because the studio and the veneers are helping me think about it too. (...)
A sense of something personal about the studio that I was nervous about or protective of coming over here was because it's not quite my studio but it's been great, it hasn't been a problem at all. (…) It's been good to get feedback, and to see what someone else's face and eyes do when they're standing in front of my work. That part has always been good for the practice, but it's not something that can happen all the time. (...)
I've been taking photos of my body in this new studio and it was the first time I had natural light on my body, which is so important to the history of Western figurative painting. (...)
Looking through your past works, you’ve continually expanded your unique technique of painting with water, ink, and heat by integrating your body, actual objects, gravity, and more. Now that the current series is centered around figuration, is there a particular subject or idea that’s been inspiring you?
[I’ve been thinking about] Renaissance paintings, the exploration of the nude. Or, I don’t even think I’m interested in that, I just think it’s the most relevant way of thinking about the nude, both in sculpture and painting. It hasn’t been specifically about any pretty boys of the Renaissance, like the Donatellos, St. Sebastians, or the Bathers but more so the entire tradition of nude in Western art. (...)
I don't really use any of that [mood boards]. I don't write things down or have a file saved anywhere or anything. They’re just in my head, floating around. I’ve never made a mood board my entire life, not once.
When thinking about the studio as a subject, how do you approach the intentionality behind your space?
I make an intentional point to not keep anything extra in my studio, like personal items, or decorative objects like flowers, nothing except for the purest things, and I like having as little stuff as possible.
I am anti-accumulation and keeping things in my studio, maybe one day.
But no sentimental objects, I keep my studio pretty pure. (...)
The important thing is that the studio is mine and it’s Ren’s space. I don’t really let the outside world into my work too much.
Pose a question you wish you were asked more often, and answer it. we’ll pass your question onto the next artist in this studio.
I do think of my work as more questions than answers. (...)
I don't mind if people ask questions, but sometimes, let me just say, why do you have to put boxes around? People don't understand how ambiguous my own work is to me and how little meaning I assign to things. I don’t work in that way, I’m not a storyteller.
*All images are of Ren Light Pan’s studio at 99 Canal, captured by the artist, July 2025
Ren Light Pan (b. 1990) is a New York–based artist whose cross-disciplinary practice blends painting, installation, and performance. Over the past decade, she has developed an experimental painterly approach to traditional Chinese ink, using it as a site to explore personal narratives and reframe dialogues between Eastern and Western art histories.
For the past three months, Ren Light Pan has been working out of Studio 2, crucially the most spacious studio at 99 Canal, where she prepared a new series of works currently exhibiting in her solo exhibition at Lyles & King, on view through this Saturday, October 4.
Studio Program | 99 Canal
Our Studio Program facilitates four private, professional studios (350–800 sq ft), offered to artists of all disciplines through three-month residencies on a rotating basis. We’ve found that individuals developing personal projects in New York, engaging with our neighborhood, and proposing initiatives for our public programs tend to gain the most from the residency. During their time at 99 Canal, artists are invited to take part in community-driven activities such as our ‘in conversation’ series, weekly lunches, and open studios.
Beyond our bi-annual Open Call (next Cycle opens January 2026), individuals are invited to apply for a subsidized studio by sending us an email: hello@99canal.net