Jill Smith Interviews Martina Reinhart in Austria

“The message is always dependent on the series, the theme and content I’m working with.”

Martina Reinhart’s latest exhibit “Humans/Dreams/Knowledge” will open on Thursday, September 13, 2012 from 12-2pm.  The exhibit takes place at Danube-University Krems Culture Campus
Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Street 30, 3500 Krems, Austria and will run until October 3rd.  I recently had the chance to interview Martina to find out about her latest works.

Jill Smith:  Your works have a mixed media style to them, using drawing, prints and painting all at once.  How did you arrive at working this way?

Martina Reinhart:  I come from a background in painting and I used it to create abstract works, while studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.  Then I had a scholarship in Barcelona, where I learned how to use screen-printing.  I have always been inspired by life and feel called to themes of beauty and transience.  I then started to examine the ‘image of woman’, the ideals of beauty and what impact society has on the perception of different types of women.  With this purpose in mind, I began combining photographs, screen-printing and painting with one another to create my compositions.

JS: Some of your work feels somewhat cryptic, is there a hidden message you want the viewer to receive?

MR:  The message is always dependent on the series, the theme and content I’m working with.

JS:   What future projects do you have in mind for your work?

MR:  Most recently, with my series ‘Knowledge And Its Structures’ I have been exploring structures and manifestations of the brain.  Since then, I have been working to examine how the written word transfers knowledge in light of new media, the internet, and cyber communication.  I have also made a contemporary reinterpretation of Descartes; thesis “cogito ergo sum.”