Kirstine Reiner’s Paintings Leave Room for Interpretation

Kirstine Reiner’s unique style of painting was born out of playful experimentation. With a BA in Design and Illustration, the Danish painter (currently based in Berlin), spent a decade painting strictly realistic artworks, before letting loose of her restrictions.

“Something that started almost as an exercise had become my style, which wasn’t actually intended,” she told Jung Katz. “I started painting this way out of a need to learn the basics of painting so that I could one day work in a looser style,” she explained. “So it became a means to an end so to speak and a challenge to see if I could master the techniques of the old masters.”

According to Reiner, what began as a challenge turned into a rigid form of painting that didn’t reflect her thoughts and feelings. Change was inevitable. “I decided that now everything was fair game, photographic source material, appropriation of imagery, using whichever materials, working from the computer screen and so on,” says Reiner. “So I turned around and did the opposite of what I used to do.”

Her experimentational style challenges the restrictions of realism but does so with a wink and a smile. Reiner herself describes her newfound style as “realism tumbles with cubism.” Her mixed-media approach involves appropriating images from magazines and advertising as a visual reference and conjoining these images with art historical elements in collage-like formations.

Her looser style also leaves room for creative interpretation. “What I  hope for, is for people to create their own narratives,” says Reiner, “that they hopefully look at the work for more than a glance.”