Julia Schwartz interviews painter Jennifer Wynne Reeves about her work and practice.

Reeves recalls: "In High School I became very interested in theatre and was the lead in several plays and musicals. Theatre brought me out. I loved it. I found a family there. We had a great program, a large auditorium as well as a little theater. Students could use the little theater to produce and direct plays of their choice. There was a trap door in the floor of the stage we were always trying to find a reason to use. That’s one of the things I love about making art now—finding the trap doors, the surprises, in a composition and figuring out how to utilize them."

She continues: "My process is intuitive coupled with experience. I try to synthesize them. I’ll take an old painting, turn it upside down and see if it wants to be something else, changing it completely or very little… I just try to do something, do it again differently, and then do it again from another angle… some [works] are constructed with wire,some include hair, and some very thick applications of paint. I grab what’s at hand. I push my understanding of my materials to evolve until I let them evolve."