About Modrenne.

The name Modrenne comes from my Irish side, my father’s side. When my father was growing up in Boston, he would go back to Ireland every summer to be with his family. His cousins used to pronounce modern, as “modren.” It had a European air and sound to it, but maintained a grounded sense coming from the Irish farmers, spoken over pints in the local pubs in Cork. My father would then bring the term back to Boston, where his friends and family continued modren’s legacy. I picture my father, growing up with four other siblings in a 3-bedroom house, riding around Boston mocking the pompous houses and their modren façades. Those houses—all-glass, all-white, brand-new. High-class without any character. High-art without any artistry. 

I moved to Paris when I was eighteen hoping to be transformed and churned out as something more than what I came in. Throughout all my travels, I have learned slowly that I have stayed myself. Paris taught me how essential it was to be surrounded by beauty and art. The history of the city was unmatched by any other living experience I had known, and fueled me with a larger purpose to make my own legacies. In my linguistics courses in Paris I remembered the word modren from my father, and while picking up French, I changed the spelling to embrace the European flair. Modrenne, a singular, feminine touch. 

I started Modrenne with the ideals of being the premier arts and culture publication to make high-art widely understood and accessible. At Modrenne, there is no dumbing down of art, or promotion of one-dimensional sources. Modrenne is where art, in all its forms, is reintroduced as a third space, a crucial part of the human experience, and a lost regular practice. The days of gallery-going, opera reviews, and museum openings are still here, and we need them more than ever. To observe art is to absorb it, and to be absorbed in art is to be saturated with understanding. 

At Modrenne, high-art is everyone’s to have and to hold. Like it’s origin namesake, Modrenne is an expression of the contrast between the current lofty culture surrounding high-art and the wider audience art should include. From the pubs in Cork to the runways of Paris, Modrenne has taught me, and will continue to cover and divulge, the undeniable value of connection and beauty.