Louise Reynolds’ artworks demonstrate an intensely personal brand of magical realism. Drawing on narratives from the daily news cycle, Reynold’s lifts headlines or recurring stories from the press and transforms these snippets of verbal inspiration into visual scenes of uncanny atmosphere. The drama of each piece is found in their disparate influences; having noticed the media’s tendency to position stories of significant human issues alongside celebrity or consumer gossip, Reynolds is acutely adept at combining the narratives presented to her in a way that captures both their anxiety and comedy simultaneously, caricaturing the flippancy and oversaturation of the news.

Condensing references to both high and low culture into each piece, Reynolds is particularly keen on removing hierarchical structures throughout her work. This is reflected in her choice of medium, often forgoing traditional oil paints in favour of pencils and watercolours on wood. Reynolds is an unequivocal ambassador of drawing, which has traditionally been seen as inferior to painting – but Reynolds refutes this. That she draws directly onto wooden panels also gives her artworks an intriguing hybridity. The grain of the wood is not always obvious at first glance, but it provides her works with a strong textural undercurrent, and the artist enjoys the challenge of working either with or against it.