about rene

Rene Efi Hakimian was born in Tehran, Iran in 1967. He lost his parents at a young age and moved to New York with his family in 1979 at the beginning of the Iranian Revolution. Rene finished high school in Queens and started college at C.W. Post, where he studied art. He then went on to SUNY in Albany where he graduated with a major in geography and a minor in sociology.

After graduating, Rene spent a few months in Israel in 1991. When Rene returned to New York, he began painting more intensely and prolifically. His early works reveal his Middle Eastern and Jewish heritage.

In 1997, about one hundred of his paintings were destroyed and lost, although slides and photographs of these works do exist.

While working in the family diamond business, Rene's passion remains painting and the arts. His pieces are often sold to art dealers and private collectors.

Rene spends every free moment studying and reading about philosophy and Art. He has developed his own philosophy of life and believes in destiny, that all people are gifted and equal and maintains a Utopian view of life in the future.

His art is an expression of his complex feelings and thoughts and how he visualizes the world, deriving a strong influence from American psychoanalysis. He referes to his drawings as social maps. According to him his artwork reflects an internal dialogue with himself.

Rene works with various media and surfaces: oils, pastels, acrylics, colored pencils, watercolors, and penned graphics on canvas and paper, experimenting colors with patterns and designs.