Louise Reiner
These small mixed media sculptures speak to the complex and often contradictory history of both subjugation and adoration of women. The ambiguities of being both bound and worshipped are contained in their paradoxical image. They are small, wrapped and bound yet they burst with the power of fecundity and energy. Armless, legless, their bindings seem to provide protection, yet these earthy, fertile women embody a life-giving spirit that cannot be suppressed nor can the feelings they evoke.
Louise Reiner’s work has been concerned with feminism and biomorphic abstraction since the late ‘60’s. She exhibited work in the seminal exploration of feminist art, What is Feminist Art, at the Los Angeles Women’s Building in 1976. She had a one-person exhibition at Elaine Benson Gallery (1980), a two person exhibition (1988) at A.I.R. Gallery, a three-person exhibition at Hopper House (1998), and four person exhibition at Pace University in 1996.
For over 30 years Reiner’s work was juried into group shows by such gallerists and curators as Suzi Gablik, Holly Solomon, Ivan Karp, John Perreault, Alan Stone, Marcia Tucker and Patterson Simms. These included exhibitions at the Sculpture Center, Montclair State University, Queens College, CW Post College, Doma Gallery, East Hampton Center for Contemporary Art, A.I.R. Gallery, Washington Square East Galleries, and the Berkshire Museum.
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