Reno Voet My name is Reno Voet, born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. My dad was one of the designers at a dutch fashion company called C&A. He set up all of the clothing for the woman's departments. My Mom did completely different work, she worked in laboratory for blood-research. My sister started as a fashion-designer but went in a complete different direction and is working now at the biggest European bank as the head of product design. Me, well, I am trained as a graphic designer and photographer. After years of letting music go first in my life and some record releases in Holland I finally fully focused on my training and started working my craft. As a kid I was more into drawing, it made me concentrate better on what the teacher was saying, but he did not agree on that, so as a 8 year old kid, they send me to an extra special school to work on my concentration. And basically pushed away my joy and love for drawing. When I had to choose a direction for the next school I choose design. Finally I could just draw and make creations as much as I wanted. Right then graffiti and music where a big part in my life already. But because of my concentration problem it was good to do many things at the same time. And it works for me. After moving from job to job, I finally made the step to move from Amsterdam to New York, and I lived and worked there for 4 years. After that I returned to Holland where I met Neža in a gallery in Amsterdam, we got to talking and starting thinking of ways to collaborate. Our first work together was Um Telo. Fun for us to work together, but not so good because you have to go through the process to reach the next spot. And I think now we did. After moving in 2009 from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, and living in the same city, the influence from her work on mine really started to happen. I started to look at my work differently. I started to pull photography and design more and more together. And the angles and thoughts behind my work are constantly changing. An SLR camera is now in normal daily use by every Tom, Dick and Harriet, so how do I make sure I don't become one of those. That is why I like to say my specialization is, as I like to call it: foto:grafik:art. I recently started working for Footlocker Europe, as conceptional designer. For them it's really about showing works in a commercial way, and my thoughts are to take that to a different level. I really love the times that companies had their own look and design and made them stand out in that way. The companies now are really bland and hopping really quickly to the next trend. Kind of tricky. So I think that it's fun to make that happen at Footlocker. But I like to pull my own work away from that direction more and more and make it more focused on what I think and feel right then. I have two heros, a photographer and an architect. The photographer: Glenn E. Friedman, for his eye for photography and being at the right moment. A movement starter by the use of color and the way he places his subjects on the photos. This really was a big influence on my work and I think it still is. And the architect: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. For his way of designing with the thinnest and slimmest materials, his Barcelona pavilion. God is in the details he said. Well he sure was and that also made me focus on that. Both superheros. Keeping my work fresh is tricky. On one side I want to constantly reinvent myself and create completely new thoughts. On the other side I like to create a look and just get better at that and grow with it, but not move on to the next thought. It's a thing I fight with a lot. But I think the battle is being won lately by the thought of growing just in one form.

As a graphic designer, they teach you to look around and let everything inspire you. That still works for me. As to making a living through photography: make sure that what you do is yours and that you are good at what you do. Then you get to the point of making money doing what you love. My goals for the future are multiple: let me break it down. - I would like to have my own company for advertisement with a restaurant below it. The thought behind that is that people always need to eat, and people always have something to sell.  The people that work at my place would always have a place to eat, to relax their minds, and than back to work. Meeting clients in my own restaurant would be better than taking them out to someone else's restaurant. - I am designing a house together with my girlfriend and next year we are buying the land for it. The year after that we are going to build it. - Get further with the photography in the direction of art, and get works into galleries. 30DII is like a nightmarish happy moment. The thought of thirty days being in one house with one person, and not talking to someone about your work or getting feedback, is weird but beautiful at the same time. I started out really just making photos and the further we got into the project the more I let go of it, and the quicker I got to the point of an idea. It's really a combination of a lot of emotions, but one keeps the main part of a smile. Neža is a great artist and person to be around. She really brings joy when I see her working, and it's like a beam of energy that makes me want to do better. The subject matter is where real stories or moments of us come together. Some work does not show the actual thought behind it, but the fun part is that she knows. Its hard to say which works I like the best of the 30, its like kids you don't pick a favorite, you love them just as much. An artist's statement? Nothing is everything, as a kid I saw a documentary about Africa, and I saw a kid make a car out of a Coca Cola can. As long as you don't make your mind lazy you can create everything with nothing.

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