ROBIN REYNOLDS (American b. 1964-)Painter My work brings beauty to the table. Painting plein air or constructing collages, I create lush,luminous layered surfaces of my garden. With both, my senses are heightened to color, texture,light and smell. Outside, I dive into the tangled life cycles of plants and flowers with energeticmark-making, exuberant color and line, intuitive looking, layering and wiping. I start by plantingfor how I’ll want to paint: colors, heights, when things bloom, where my easel will be.Inside making collages, I layer transparencies from vintage gardening and children’s books,linocuts prints, antique lace and fabrics and a wide variety of mixed media. With both, theprocess remains the same; improvisational, slowly building the surface and manipulating variedmark making to create a dance between near and far, abstraction and representation.With the collages, I also take part in the feminist art form of femmage. I reclaim found materialsfrom traditionally “women’s work”—knitting, needlework, gardening, motherhood and use it forfine art. At thrift stores, yard sales, and flea markets, I rescue discarded artifacts of domestic life:seed catalogs, women’s magazines, linens, sewing patterns, and dresses. I give them new life,showing the exquisite textures and craft that women made, felt beautiful in, and created theirhomes with.The collages and the paintings bring beauty, feminism and our threatened environment to theforefront: conceptually expressing the delicate nature of each and its implications of vulnerabilitywithin today’s changing world.