Rory Reynolds’ body of work is an autobiography told through the language of the mythic and surreal. He uses painting and drawing to communicate lived experience by translating it into symbolic, dreamlike images. Recent work is shaped by his relationship with the body, control, and familial tensions. 

Reynolds draws on medieval European imagery, pop culture, pagan myth, and psychedelic visual language as tools. Figures recur as stand-ins for the self, shifting between roles of saint, child, offering, monster, and witness. Ornament and beauty are intentional; they draw the viewer in while complicating what they are asked to sit with.

Reynolds is interested in how imagined worlds can hold experiences that are difficult to name and how fantasy can function as a way of telling truth sideways.

Born in 2001 in Monroe, Michigan, Rory Reynolds grew up in a tiny cottage secluded on the shores of Lake Erie. Reynolds previously studied fine art at Monroe County Community College where he served as Co-President of the Art Club, curating three exhibitions with the group. He holds a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, with a concentration in painting and drawing.