Valentin Elias Renner
Thread, nail, and the rhythm between order and chaos.
I was born in 1998 and grew up in southern Germany, between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Ulm. Long before I became an artist, I dreamed of becoming an explorer in the most traditional sense. I wanted to sail across the world, discover unknown islands, name new species, and map places nobody had seen before.
That dream changed when my father introduced me to Google Earth. Suddenly, I realized that much of the world had already been explored and documented. While that discovery ended my childhood vision of becoming an explorer, it never diminished my desire to discover. Instead, it pushed me in a different direction: I began creating my own worlds.
From an early age, I was fascinated by maps. I spent countless hours drawing fictional countries, studying atlases, and immersing myself in geography. After finishing school, I began traveling extensively through Southeast Asia and finally experienced the excitement of exploration firsthand. To document these journeys, I created an interactive world map made from nails and thread — a piece that still exists today and continues to grow with every new place I visit.
Exhibitions
- Maison BaillyParis
- Galerie Le Royer — Group ExhibitionToronto
- Vaunt ModernSeattle, USA
- Art Fair Philippines — ModekaManila
- Language of Light — Solo ShowDaniel & die Kunst
- Kunsthalle MannheimMannheim · June 2025
- Galerie LeRoyerMontreal, Canada
- WitArt GalleryMadrid, Spain
- Trader Gallery — Solo ShowHamburg, Germany
- Galerie Viercke — Solo ShowHamburg
- Daniel und die KunstHamburg
- BAODT ArtKitzbühel
- BAODT ArtMunich
- RatsherrenHamburg
- Pullman HotelBerlin
- PNEUMAHamburg
- Galerie VierckeHamburg
- BAODT Art—
- The Body Shop / WandelhallenHamburg
- TaugenichtsbarHamburg
- Thinkfusion / StilwerkHamburg
- Atelier 21Hamburg
- TanzwüsteFusion Festival
- BaalsaalHamburg
- Millerntor GalleryHamburg
- Pangea Festival—
- JupiterHamburg
- StilwerkHamburg
- Trader Gallery — Solo ShowHamburg
- HijackHamburg
- RatsherrenHamburg
- Langen FoundationNeuss
- Soleado / Yoko ClubHamburg
- Intertronika / FabriqueHamburg
The first face — 2019/2020
After the world map, I started experimenting with portraits. The first real artwork I ever made was The Alchemist — a large, symmetrical face built entirely from nails and red thread, hung outside on the streets of Hamburg. It set the language for everything that followed: the symmetry, the rhythm of the lines, the colour that would later return again and again.
For years afterwards I worked privately, using whatever I could find: leftover wood from hardware stores, simple tools, limited materials. Each new piece was a way to refine the technique and to understand what thread could actually do.
Smaller works
Alongside the faces, I made a number of smaller pieces — studies, really. Golden Hour is one of them: a tight, geometric composition in black and gold that let me focus purely on line, density, and the way light catches on a single colour of thread. These smaller works are where most of the technical breakthroughs happened, quietly, in between the larger pieces.
Order and Chaos — 2022/2023
In 2022, I exhibited publicly for the first time, in a group show in Hamburg. That experience turned a private practice into a clear direction. Out of it grew the Order and Chaos series — a body of work that mirrored my own life at the time. I had just arrived in Hamburg: a new city to find my way in, friends to make, university, work, and still playing futsal in the Bundesliga for St. Pauli on the side.
Every piece in the series sits on that same edge — strict structure on one side, something looser and more chaotic on the other, trying to hold each other in balance. Magna Cetera is one of the works that came out of that period.
Nota — returning to what I knew
After Order and Chaos came my first real creative low. The Nota series was the way out of it. Nota comes from the Latin for the familiar — what is already known. The series was a reminder to myself: go back to what you know. I returned to the same red palette as The Alchemist, the very first piece, and used it as a starting point to find the thread again.
Cor is one of the works from that series — quieter, more inward, but built on exactly the same vocabulary I had started with years before.
Spectra and Strata — running in parallel
From there, two bodies of work began to develop side by side. The Spectra series pushed the colour gradients further than anything I had attempted before — broader spectrums, more ambitious transitions, layered tones built entirely from thread.
In parallel, the Strata series took shape. Strivio and Aurivio are its first works — more architectural, built up in distinct layers and bands, focused on how planes of thread can sit on top of one another without losing each line's identity. Both were sold during the Madrid exhibition in March 2025.
Between the two series sits an in-between piece — neither fully Spectra nor fully Strata, but built from the same vocabulary. It was auctioned at the Kunsthalle Mannheim benefit auction in June 2025, together with the Art Genossen.
Today — Prisma
My current body of work, the Prisma series, brings together everything that came before — the symmetry of the early faces, the tension of Order and Chaos, the restraint of Nota, and the colour and layering of Spectra and Strata. The pieces are defined by thousands of precisely placed nails and threads that shift depending on perspective, distance, and light.
Today I exhibit internationally, with works shown in Canada, the United States, Spain, Germany, and the Philippines. The childhood dream of discovering new worlds has changed shape, but the motivation behind it is the same: curiosity, exploration, and the desire to reveal something that has not been seen before.
Residencies
- 2025 · Werkstattwoche Lüben