We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kirstine Reiner Hansen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Kirstine Reiner, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I was always drawing as a child, it was very natural. I’m sure everybody says that! My parents would throw me paper and pencil and I’d be happily occupied for hours. In fact any creative project would have me intensely focused. As a young adult I think I thought of myself as an artist, but was worried I couldn’t make a living, so I chose a BA in illustration and graphic design at Kolding School of Design in Denmark. After graduation the employment situation was generally quite poor, so it seemed just as well to start following my real inclination to paint. This situation gave me the time to delve into painting and honing my craft.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am an artist, painter, who works in oils. I am based in Carmel, California, but I come from Denmark. The style of my paintings can be described as ‘disrupted realism’, a term coined by the art critic John Seed who wrote the book ‘Disrupted Realism – Paintings For A Distracted World’. At design school I focused on illustration. I was totally in my right element, Through the years there I realized that my approach was more artistic and when I graduated I was more tuned into making art, and painting in oils.
Moving to the US really helped me become a professional artist, there’s this sense that you have the freedom to be yourself or to invent yourself. I was lucky to get a gallery right away and also started to teach art privately. Now, 20 years later, I am represented by Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco and Georges Bergès Gallery in New York.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Learning to navigate the contemporary art scene without the background and support of an MFA program, that has been challenging. Finding a sort of self-acceptance as a self taught artist. Moving countries and states as many times as I have can take its toll, but it has also been inspiring and invigorating and an invaluable part of my life as an artist. Each of us have our unique path and my fate seemed to have been to learn to assimilate to new places and people. That all has become part of my artistic expression.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
I think for me it all starts with self expression… The art is a kind of method to deal with life’s problems. It’s a visual, philosophical filter. And then a desire to share my art with other people, with the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: reinerhansen.com
- Instagram: reinerhansenart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reiner.hansen
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirstine-reiner-hansen-a3b2667/
- Twitter: reiner_hansen