Biography
Rena Tom is an artist, writer, and independent curator based in Berkeley, CA who works across photography, prints, textiles, zines and artist’s books, and installation. She holds an MA in Critical Craft Studies from Warren Wilson College and dual degrees in English and Mechanical Engineering from UC Santa Barbara. Her curiosity about objects, making, and makers, as well as the spaces they inhabit, is the throughline spanning 20+ years as a craftsperson, designer, shopkeeper, gallerist, instructor, and event producer in San Francisco and Brooklyn.
Currently, Rena utilizes mundane objects, optical illusions, and found imagery to question and reframe everyday experience. Beyond the studio, she runs the micro-press Not Great, Not Terrible, volunteers with radical publishing Risograph shop Reprographixxx, and produces large-scale participatory art installations plus the occasional pirate radio broadcast; these highly collaborative projects inform her solo practice.
Statement
I have a weird fascination with discomfort. As a fifth generation Chinese American, my existence is privileged but my sense of belonging remains liminal: I am a perpetual outsider based on my appearance, resisting expectations to be a ‘model minority’. This propel explorations into perception, surveillance, and the transmission of information through written, visual, and multisensory means.
The conceptual nature of my research is anchored by the intimate, embodied aspects of craft. I investigate material and immaterial objects as sites where tensions play out to address issues of visibility, privacy, and identity. This work proposes or exposes alternative realities to inspire generative critical thinking about the future.
CV
Recent Curatorial Projects
2025
How It Is Nowadays, Root Division, San Francisco, CA
I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On, 120710, Berkeley, CA
Recent Exhibitions and Installations
2026
Shared Impressions: Printmaking from Laney College, SFO Museum, San Francisco, CA
HERE & NOW, Peralta Colleges Juried Student Exhibition, June Steingart Gallery, Oakland, CA
Cohorts Season One Group Show, Bathers Library, Oakland, CA
Women’s+ 10xTEN, Faultline Gallery, Oakland, CA