Artospective: Abstracted Figures by Kirstine Reiner Hansen from United States.

An small Interview with Kirstine Reiner Hansen.

Who and from where are you?

Kirstine Reiner Hansen, born in Odense, Denmark, now living in California, US. I’m a painter and art teacher.

How you got into this?

I got a Bachelors in Graphic Design and Illustration from Kolding School of Design in Denmark. After I graduated I moved to London. For a while it was difficult to get a job in my profession, so I started painting in oils, something I wanted to try out anyway. It was quite a steep learning curve. As I was self taught, it took a lot of determination to create the kind of paintings I wanted to make… A lot of messing around, a lot of awful paintings that I would paint over. Sometimes a painting would have 4 different paintings underneath. Most of the work from that time is stacked in a loft somewhere in England… My work, my style, has gone through quite a few changes over the years.

What is your driving force?

I feel quite useless if I don’t create. And I have an ambitious streak. I believe you have to strive to be the best You, or rather, do the things that make you fulfilled… I would hate myself for not at least trying, taking a chance, taking a risk, even it it fails.

What kind of work you do and why?

The work I do is abstracted figures, based on collages I create. That is, I first make a collage, then I create the painting, based on looking at the collage as a starting point. I’m interested in how we humans present ourselves, the masks we bear, the artificial constructs that we hide behind. I try to convey the time we live in, how it seems like time is speeding up. Things seem more impermanent than ever, more fragmented.