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Thirty-five-year-old Kirsten Reynolds, of Newmarket, was recently awarded an Artist Advancement Grant from the Piscataqua Regoin of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. The foundation selected Reynolds to receive the $26,000 award based on her application, which explained how she will use the money to advance her career.

Reynolds has worked in a variety of mediums, but her recent work has focused on creating large-scale installations that combine architectural elements, sculpted figures and colorful patterns to create space-specific experiences for viewers. In a recent interview with The Wire, Reynolds explained some of her latest pieces.

“The work is, at its heart, engaging curiosity as a mode of being in the world. In my work, the idea is to create a space of irrationality. I create a situation that a person can participate in and imagine their own conclusions of,” she said. 
Much of the work uses a combination of wood and insulation foam that has been cut into the same dimensions and painted with faux wood colors.

“What you see in the beginning might appear as wood, but it is usually a cartoony version of it. It creates a heavy illusion. There are oversized nails and tacks. There is an over-the-top treatment to all of the materials. I create something that is sort of in between fact and fiction,” Reynolds said.

When Reynolds learned she had been awarded the Artists Advancement Grant, her initial reaction was disbelief. “I was completely stunned, because I submitted the grant at a time when I was doing work for two different shows. I very nearly didn’t send in the application, but then a friend told me, ‘You don’t need sleep.’ So, I turned it in and was amazed when I was selected,” she said.

The application gave Reynolds an opportunity to scrutinize her artistic career thus far. She had to put together an artist advancement plan with short- and long-term goals for her artistic career.

“It makes you sit down and question where you want to go and how much it will cost,” she said. “It makes you think concretely about your career and your practice as an artist.”

One committee reviewed her advancement plan and budget, while another looked at her actual artwork. After making their selections, the two committees came together and conferred over their choices. Reynolds’ work and plan were at the top of their lists. 

With the money, Reynolds hopes to hire an assistant. “Quite a bit of this is very labor intensive. Every single surface has been painted or carved. It takes three to six months to get ready for an installation,” she said.

Reynolds also hopes to develop proposals that will get her work exposed to a national audience. “I want to move from being a regional artist to being a nationally recognized artist,” she said.

As a region, the Seacoast has been kind to Reynolds. “I think it’s a really dynamic place, and it’s changing to really embrace contemporary work. And that’s been a surprise. I’ve been here for 10 years and have seen a shift toward embracing more contemporary art,” she said.

Not long after being awarded the N.H. Charitable Foundation grant, Reynolds was notified she had been awarded an Artist’s Resource Trust Fund grant from the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation worth $4,500.

“That, too, was a total surprise. I’ve been sending these grants out in dire circumstances. I sent out this one while my son had a fever. I was almost doubly surprised when the news was positive,” she said. In 2007, Reynolds earned an Individual Artist Fellowship from the N.H. Council on the Arts.

Reynolds’ career has followed a long and winding path. As a college student, she studied video art and sculpture. After graduating, she worked in video production in commercial applications. About a year later, she decided to strip out the technology and focus on painting and drawing. She soon began making small sculptures with high-density polyurethane foam that her husband brought home from work. Eventually, she returned to school to get a graduate degree, and her work evolved further.
 

“I started doing more of these organic forms, and that’s been where the installations came about. And, just recently, I went back to video,” she said.

Reynolds documented the construction of one installation in time-lapse video. “Seeing it in video was really intriguing,” she said. “I’m really excited about doing another project that capitalizes on that idea, choreographing the production of a piece.”
Despite her recent success, Reynolds knows that being an artist is difficult, especially when it comes to getting paid.

“You go into art knowing you’ll have to work several jobs. But you also go into art because you believe in it,” she said. “I’ve invested enormous amounts of time, and yet, it’s really worth it. What’s really exciting (about the grants) is being able to think beyond the limitations that I’ve become accustomed to.”