Rennó studied at the Escola de Arquitetura, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; and the Escola Guignard, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In 1997 she completed her PHD in Fine Art at the Escola de Comunicações e Artes, Universdad de São Paulo, Brazil.

Rosângela Rennó’s works with culture’s detritus, recycling and rescuing from oblivion and neglect pre-existing visual and written information. As if in constant battle against the amnesia that impregnates the persistent flow of images that surrounds us, she has appropriated photographs from family albums, penitentiary files, the national press, archives of popular photography, and from official documents and forms.

Like many artists from her generation, Rosângela Rennó suggests that images are deceptive. With the compulsion of a professional collector she accumulates, re-unites, reorganizes, and re-contextualizes photographs and texts. By means of subtle shifts and interventions she creates new ways of seeing old objects, recovering remainders of meaning, and opening up new layers of significance.

Rosângela Rennó also represented Brazil at the 50th Venice Biennal. In 1992 she participated in the São Paulo Biennal. She has had numerous solo exhibitions both internationally and within Brazil. Her work is part of public collections around the world, including: The Art Institute of Chicago, el Centro Galego de arte Contemporáneo, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

This interview from 2001 by Maria Angélica Melendi covers Rennó’s interest in the historical language found within images, particularly photography.