Renée Stout’s Bewitching Circuitry

Renée Stout’s Bewitching Circuitry

Renée Stout was born in Junction City, Kansas, to a creative family — a mother who did needlework, a father who was a mechanic and steelworker, and an uncle who painted. After they moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she took weekend classes at the Carnegie Museum of Art, where she encountered Congolese nkisi nkondi, figurative and protective objects, often studded with nails, that house spirits who hunt down evildoers. She went on to receive her…