Of Italian-Slovenian origin, Sandi Renko was born in Trieste in 1949. He graduated from the Umberto Nordio Art Institute, whose teachers included Miela Reina, Enzo Cogno, Ugo Carà and Marcello Siard. Thanks to them, he began to attend the Centro Arte Viva, which at that time introduced the city to the
works of Enzo Mari, Getulio Alviani, Bruno Munari and others. He was thus attracted to the experimental field of kinetic and programmed art. His first ribbed work, a medium that would determine the development of a personal artistic language focused on geometry and three-dimensionality and on the
interaction between the observer and the work, dates from 1969.
In the early 1970s he moved to Padua and opened a design, visual communication and art direction studio, working with leading companies in the design of furniture, furnishing systems and lighting. Stimulated by the artistic and intellectual context of Padua, which still echoes the experiences of Gruppo N, he began to participate in group exhibitions, happenings and impromptu events, thus consolidating his affinities with concrete art. He also applied the rigor of design to artistic production and pursued an always linear and coherent path, based on a personal technique.
Since 2000, encouraged by Alberto Biasi, he has intensified his artistic activity by experimenting with new colours and materials. He has ventured into synaesthetic projects, producing a series of multisensory sound works.
A first complete exhibition of his production was organized in 2015 at the Padiglione delle Arti in Marcon, Venice. In 2016, he exhibited alongside historical representatives of programmed and kinetic art, including Cruz-Diez, Le Parc and Tornquist, at the exhibition The sharper perception held in New York, and the
following year he was present at the exhibition Biasi, Campesan, Munari and other friends of Verifica 8+1, as part of the 57th Venice Biennale.
From 2019 he moved his studio from Padua to Trieste. He also reconnected with Slovenian colleagues through the ZDSLU (Association of Slovenian Visual Artists Societies).
The solo exhibition Sandi Renko Fuori dalle righe. 50 years of visual perception, in which he exhibited over sixty works at the Palazzo del Monferrato in Alessandria.
In 2021 he was among the artists selected for the sixth international biennial Origins in Geometry, organized by the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art in Dallas (TX).
In 2022, one of his projects was selected for the Odprta Vrata/Open Doors call of the Obalne Galerije/Coastal Galleries in Piran.
He was invited to participate in the 2022 edition of the Palinsesti exhibition in San Vito al Tagliamento, where he presented, in addition to a specific installation, a series of works created for the occasion to accompany a kinetic sculpture.
