Finissage: Patricia Reinhart “avant de mourir”

“13 poèmes visibles” is comprised of 12 Super-8 film projections titled “avant de mourir” juxtaposed with a single projection, “Ophelia.”

Patricia Reinhart uses a technique to produce these film loops which she has named ciné-collage. Multiple still photographs of characters and location details are collaged together in painterly layers and given just enough movement to provide a living depth of color and space.

Patricia Reinhart’s work is a ‘one-woman production.’ She is the model for every character portrayed and all of the images are sourced and arranged by her in a very private studio practice. This process offers a singular viewpoint using a character which is as once a symbol, avatar, and metaphor.

The theme-setting image in this installation, “Ophelia,” functions both as a reference to the artwork by John Everett Millais and to Shakespeare’s character herself in Hamlet. Ophelia’s character represents women’s sexuality and passions as a madness leading to tragedy and death, in her case by drowning that is assumed to be suicide.

These works have a direct relationship to melodrama as a form of performance technique, especially in certain operas. Reinhart’s melodramas, rather than having the stock characters of hero, heroine, villain, and so on, consist of a single female character. The overall effect is a narrative of personal growth in the face of an apocalyptic existential state of being.

b. Vienna 1977 Patricia Reinhart studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts under Wolfgang Hollegha, Sue Williams and Muntean/Rosenblum. She has exhibited at a number of spaces in and near Vienna, including solo exhibitions at Galerie Dana Charkasi, and group exhibitions at Kerstin Engholm Gallery and at the Essl Museum.