Artist Profile: Lisa Reinertson

 Growing up in Sacramento and the Bay Area, Lisa Reinertson was exposed to California artists. Reinertson has been a sculptor working in ceramic and bronze for her entire adult life. Her work has been exhibited in galleries throughout California over the past 25 years.

While working on her Masters in Fine Art from U.C. Davis in 1984, Reinertson studied with Benicia artists Manuel Neri and the late Robert Arneson whom she was influenced by. She was also influenced by the sculpture she's seen in museums in the U.S., Mexico and Italy where she saw the works of Michelangelo.

While Reinertson's work is based on traditional figurative sculpture, her contemporary expression has a social influence and she has always worked in large scale. The subjects of her sculpture range from themes of parenting, women and nature. Using live models, Reinertson usually has an idea for a piece before hiring the model. “I am inspired by a whole range of humanist artists in my life.  I draw inspiration from that work but I also want to bring it into a contemporary context,” Reinertson explains.

Reinertson had been creating monumental sculptures cast in bronze since her first commission Martin Luther King, Jr. in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1989. Since then, she's created more than 20 public commissioned sculptures for San Francisco, Sacramento and cities around the Bay Area. Subjects include Cesar Chavez and St. Ignatius of Loyola. “The public work has a social political side to it,” says Reinertson. “I feel like those are my historic novels and this work (personal works) is my poetry.”

Aside from being an artist, Reinertson has taught ceramic sculpture in Louisiana, California State University, Chico, Santa Clara University, College of Marin, U.C. Berkeley and local community colleges. She's lived in Benicia for nearly four years with husband , a wood sculptor and business owner in Benicia.