In this Episode of Art is Awesome, Host Emily Wilson spends time with Denmark born Painter, Kirstine Reiner Hansen.
Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Today, Emily chats with painter Kirstine Rainer Hansen, as they discusses her transition from design and illustration to becoming a self-taught artist specializing in 'Disrupted Realism.' Born in Denmark, Kirstine has lived across various countries, ultimately settling in Carmel, California. Her path to art was unconventional; due to financial and societal pressures, she initially studied design but shifted to painting after struggling to find work during a recession. Kirstine's work, influenced by artists like Rembrandt, Francis Bacon, and Lucian Freud, is currently on display at the Jack Fisher Gallery at the Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco. She talks about how moving to San Francisco shaped her artistic style, transitioning from classical realism to a more fragmented, collage-based approach. Kirstine also dives into "Three Questions" talking about her artistic identity, influential works, and inspiring locations in the Bay Area.
About Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen:
Kirstine Reiner Hansen is an artist based on the Central Coast of California, US. Born in Odense, Denmark, she received a BA in Design and Illustration at Kolding School of Design. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries, most recently she had 2-person exhibition at Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco. In 2012 she received the Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Foundation Grant and was twice a semi-finalist for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. She has been featured in Juxtapoz Magazine, BloPop Magazine and the Asian Curator as well as in the book ‘Distrupted Realism’ by John Seed, 2019. Her work is featured in the movie ‘Meaning of a Ritual’ by Berlin director Natalie MacMahon, 2023.
Visit Kirstine's Website: ReinerHansen.com
Follow on Instagram: @ReinerHansenArt
For more about her current exhibit "Atmospheric Disruptions" at the Jack Fischer Gallery, CLICK HERE.
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About Podcast Host Emily Wilson:
Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women’s Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco.
Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWil
Follow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast
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CREDITS:
Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson.
Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
The Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions.
For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com
2025-0128 - AIA - EP042 - Kirstine Reiner Hansen
Host Emily Wilson: [00:00:00] Art is Awesome can now be heard on KSFP 102. 5 FM every Friday at 9 a. m. and 7 p. m. Please follow the show and rate us wherever you get your podcast media. If you like what you hear from today's artist, you can find links and information about them in our show notes.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: It took years for me to really like push through with taking that chance.
Creatively with myself, there's a worry that, oh, no, what if they're not going to like what I'm about to do now. But as an artist, you have to take the risk. Otherwise, you're just going to be stagnant. And I couldn't do that.
Host Emily Wilson: That was painter Kirstine Rayner Hansen on this week's episode of Art is Awesome.
I'm your host, Emily Wilson. I'm a writer in San Francisco, [00:01:00] often covering the arts. And I've been meeting such great people. That I created this bi weekly podcast to highlight their work.
Kirstine Reiner Hansen was born in Denmark and she's lived in lots of different places, including Switzerland, England, Germany, San Francisco, New York, and currently Carmel. Christina wanted to paint, but she was worried about making a living, so she went to school to study design and illustration. When she got out, it was difficult to get a job, so she decided to do what she'd wanted to do all along.
She taught herself. And at first she painted realistic paintings, but has since changed her style. Christina has shown work at numerous galleries, and currently she's in a show at the Jack Fisher Gallery in San Francisco's [00:02:00] Minnesota Street Project. It's up through February 8th. The show. Atmospheric Disruptions has work by both Christina and Lisa Golightly.
We met at the gallery and Christina talked about loving Rembrandt as well as Francis Bacon, using collage in her painting process, and how in San Francisco she felt she'd found an artist community. She showed me a large painting, Feeding Time, which she says took her about eight months.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: Two figures are feeding each other pasta which is a little bit humorous and also sort of showing that people are still living sort of a little bit in denial, like I say, relating to the world outside and all the terrible things happening and also sort of living lavish lifestyles like these people.
Host Emily Wilson: She talked about another painting nearby that demonstrates the way she thinks we look at the world.[00:03:00]
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: It's called Krishna Babe because of the multiple arms. It's more like a fun play, you know, with the title. I mean, the underlying theme of my paintings is how we are relating to the world now. How it's very fractured, our minds are fractured due to sort of skipping between tangible reality and online spaces seamlessly or Not so seamlessly sometimes and how we perceive the world in a sort of glitchy way and fractured way And that's what's seen in this painting as well. There's a lot of fracturing going on.
Host Emily Wilson: When she went to college Christina didn't feel ready to become a painter
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: I got a BA in Design and Illustration. It's a program that took four years when I was doing it at Kalling School of Design in Denmark. And I was quite young, you know, 19 when I started. And at that time, I wasn't ready to be an artist.
And there weren't [00:04:00] actually a lot of programs to study art. So I just felt like I need to do that to do something artistic, but make a career and make money or something. So that, that's how that happened.
Host Emily Wilson: When Kristina left school, there was a recession and she couldn't find a job, so she decided to teach herself to paint.
She moved to San Francisco, and that made a difference, she says.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: Being a self taught artist, I just started buying paints and just trial and error, making a mess, trying to learn, and that took me some years. And then at one point I moved to San Francisco, and I think that's when I felt I could just finally say I'm an artist because it seemed like I know it's cliche to say that, but there is a sense of freedom where you can reinvent yourself and you can decide to be what you want to be and go for it.
And there seems to be a lot of possibilities [00:05:00] for artists at the time in San Francisco, as opposed to in Europe, this more sort of established social structures, you're not expected to do much change or. Like, get out of your box kind of thing.
Host Emily Wilson: When she was learning, Christina studied books and looked at lots of art.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: I was in London and there it's free to sort of visit the state museums like the National Gallery and I really made the most of it and you could just wander in and out. And I would study the paintings there, the old masters, and try to emulate what I saw, and use books to look at the images. And then later on, I did start sort of reading books about techniques and things like that.
Host Emily Wilson: She painted in the same way for years. Then she changed her style.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: I did work in a sort of style of classical realism for maybe 10 years. I was showing in galleries. [00:06:00] But it really started out as a sort of exercise of me trying to Learn how to paint. And then at one point, I really felt I needed to start to change and break up the perfect realism.
And that's when I started painting the way I do now. There were a few reasons Christina changed the way she painted. It was a number of things. One thing was moving from San Francisco to New York, and because in San Francisco, I had people who would sit for me, model for me, my friends, acquaintances, and I had a studio with, you know, good lighting, I could set up still lifes and work from life, and that was kind of my thing.
And then when I moved to New York, I didn't have those things. You know, I had to figure out now what, you know, you have to adapt. And, and that's why I changed. But also just a sense of, you know, my life has been very zigzaggy and fragmented. And, and I've, I just felt the [00:07:00] need to express that more.
Host Emily Wilson: Christina calls the style she does now Disrupted realism, a term used by art critic John Seed. She struggled with the change at first.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: It was very difficult, actually. It was really hard, and it took years for me to really, like, push through with taking that chance, both sort of creatively with myself, but also because I was showing in galleries, and people liked what I was doing at that time.
So, you know, there's a worry that, oh, no, what if they're not going to like? What I'm going to be about to do now, but as an artist, you just, you have to, you have to take the risk. Otherwise you're just going to be stagnant and I couldn't do that.
Host Emily Wilson: Jack Fisher showing her work turned things around.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: Probably when I started showing with the gallery I'm with now and having the show now at Jack Fisher gallery.
It was the first gallery [00:08:00] that accepted my new work and liked it. So that was a, uh, a good start with that.
Host Emily Wilson: When Kirstine was looking at art in London, she loved classical paintings.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: Way back then, a love for Rembrandt and Ingres and Holbeins and Renaissance painters, mainly, yeah, sort of very layered, very detailed work.
Host Emily Wilson: Other painters influenced the style she has now.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: I was exposed to the School of London painters like Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach. Um, and they, so they really had an impact because I would see their work and uh, It was very exciting.
Host Emily Wilson: Kirstine talked about the way she makes her paintings.
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: My process is that I do start with a collage in Photoshop and I've sort of collected a lot of, I have like a [00:09:00] database of images that, you know, that I take from, uh, art, like art historical paintings and from sort of really Great fashion photography, usually black and white, and I like to sort of have cutouts that I do in Photoshop and then I have like a very layered file where I play.
This is very much like the playground where I compose the painting and think about what I want to do and get really familiar. And then I feel very close to it before I start painting the painting, which is completely separate from the collage.
Host Emily Wilson: This is Three Questions, the part of the show where I ask the same three questions to the guest. They are, when did you know you were an artist? What was some work that made an impression on you [00:10:00] and what's the most creatively inspiring place in the Bay Area?
Artist Kirstine Reiner Hansen: When I sort of knew I was an artist or wanted to say I was an artist we did touch upon that earlier when I came to San Francisco and everything opened up for me. But sort of early on, going back in time, I think when I was a teenager, my grandmother would send me these long letters that were typewritten, on paper.
And she would send these cutouts from art books and from the museum catalogs. And they were mostly like the modernist painters. So I had this exposure to like Braque and Picasso and, and in my mind, really, that was art with a capital A and I think it planted a seed and maybe. Deep down inside, I was [00:11:00] like, I'm also an artist.
So that was earlier on. Yeah.
Aforementioned cutouts from my grandmother, there was the Braque painting that would be like a still life with ordinary objects. And it just was so exciting that he was able to make common day things look so both disturbing and exciting at the same time. But also Francis Bacon, like I also talked about before, I think, and I know for lots of artists, it's been like a huge influence.
There's one painting, Isabelle Rawsthorne Standing on a Street in Soho, 1967, I think it's called. That one just stands out because I think at the time I was probably in my twenties and I thought, wow, it's, it's amazing to have something that's both [00:12:00] beautiful, but also grotesque and having that come together.
So that made a huge impact on me.
I would say one of the most inspiring places for me creatively in, in the Bay Area would be the Mission District. Because I was sort of a self-taught artist and I would paint in my bedroom also when I moved to San Francisco, you know, and I don't have an MFA, I don't have this kind of whole network.
So when I started renting a studio space down in Mission in one of those big warehouses with a lot of spaces, it just felt like I had an artist community. And that kind of support. So that was really cool.
Host Emily Wilson: Thank you so much for listening to Art is Awesome. And thank you to our guest, Kirstine Reiner Hanson. [00:13:00] Please follow the show and rate it, and join us in two weeks when the guest will be Ranu Mukherjee, who designed the curtain for the San Francisco Ballet's next production, Cool Britannia.
Art is Awesome is a bi weekly podcast coming out every other Tuesday. It's created and hosted by me, Emily Wilson. It is produced and edited by Charlene Gotu of Gotu Productions. It's carried on KSFP LP 102. 5 FM, San Francisco on Fridays. At 9am and 7pm. Our theme music is provided by Kevin MacLeod with Incompetech Music.
Be sure and follow us on Instagram at Art is Awesome Podcast or visit our website. Till next [00:14:00] time.