Artist Profile

Ren
K. D.

Born 1993, Palm Springs, CA
Picture of Lauren K. Dougherty, sitting on a pale blue couch.

Artist Profile

Ren
K. D.

Born 1993, Palm Springs, CA

Ren K. D. is a gender-agnostic artist and writer on the spectrum.

Previously trained as a research psychologist, Ren has a Bachelor’s and Interdisciplinary Master’s in Cognitive Psychology, with emphases in social systems, conflict, and memory. Ren is currently a Creative Nonfiction MFA candidate at the University of California, Riverside, and has been awarded Dean’s Distinguished Fellow (2023-2024) and the Dorland Fellow (2024-2025). Her visual and written works deal with the legibility of identity: the dissonance between the existential and the embodied aspects of human life. You can find her work in Mulberry Literary Journal, Brevity’s Craft blog, Rough Cut Press, and elsewhere.

6.1.19

First Resin Canvas

Issue 1: Rough Cut Press

7.1.19

Thank Me For Smoking

Issue 2: Survival

8.1.19

Me Seeing Through You Seeing Through Me

Issue 3: Spirit

9.1.19

Ride the Wave & Enjoy the Whirlpool

Issue 4: New Old Lovers

10.1.19

Alone, together.

Issue 5: Energy

9.1.26

Everything

Issue 77

Lauren’s Art

Everything
issue 77
Alone, Together - Lauren K. Dougherty .- Rough Cut Press
Alone, together.
issue 5
Be Wary Lauren K. Dougherty Rough Cut Press
This is one of my favorite paintings I’ve ever created, inspired by the way light refracts onto corals in the ocean. I used acrylic mediums, melted wax, and oils on a wooden slab I found outside the Mills College Art Studio. It’s called “Ride the Wave & Enjoy the Whirlpool.”
issue 4
you ask me why i am fire

I used glue in this guy, with acrylics, oils & melted wax, done on a rogue plexiglass window I found by the side of the road in Richmond.

At this point in my practice, I was fixated on the value of the surface.

A canvas, like people, can only do so much for us when we can’t peer through it to find the dimensions of depth.

I call it “Me Seeing Through You Seeing Through Me.”

issue 3
Thank Me For Smoking - Lauren K. Dougherty - Rough Cut Press

This is loaded up with my cigarette & joint butts as well as some of my hair—it’s called “Thank Me For Smoking.”

issue 2
When You Leave - Euna Bonovich - Lauren Dougherty - Rough Cut Press

First Resin Canvas

issue 1

Lauren’s Art

Everything
issue 77
Be Wary Lauren K. Dougherty Rough Cut Press
This is one of my favorite paintings I’ve ever created, inspired by the way light refracts onto corals in the ocean. I used acrylic mediums, melted wax, and oils on a wooden slab I found outside the Mills College Art Studio. It’s called “Ride the Wave & Enjoy the Whirlpool.”
issue 4
you ask me why i am fire

I used glue in this guy, with acrylics, oils & melted wax, done on a rogue plexiglass window I found by the side of the road in Richmond.

At this point in my practice, I was fixated on the value of the surface.

A canvas, like people, can only do so much for us when we can’t peer through it to find the dimensions of depth.

I call it “Me Seeing Through You Seeing Through Me.”

issue 3
Thank Me For Smoking - Lauren K. Dougherty - Rough Cut Press

This is loaded up with my cigarette & joint butts as well as some of my hair—it’s called “Thank Me For Smoking.”

issue 2
When You Leave - Euna Bonovich - Lauren Dougherty - Rough Cut Press

First Resin Canvas

issue 1

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