Kirk Reinert, 1955 | Fantasy painter

Kirk Reinert is an American master in the genres of Fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Kirk discovered that drawing was a natural talent at a very early age having been introduced to art by his grandfather, a sports cartoonist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and his uncle, an animator.

Kirk graduated from Cooper School of Art with a degree in production art and design but is a self-taught painter. Upon graduation, he worked in advertising as an illustrator and designer and after 3 1/2 years went on to establish his own studio in 1981.

Kirk became one of the leading illustrators in the genres of fantasy, horror, and science fiction.
During his career as a book cover artist, he has painted over 200 book covers, including projects such as the 'Conan the Barbarian' series and Clive Barker's novels.
He has won many awards including "Cover Artist of the Year" for his "Creepy" and "Eerie" magazine covers at Warren publishing and he has been honored 4 times with the "National Best Book Cover of the Year" awards for work done with Harper/Collins publishers.
Also from that era, his book cover paintings were exhibited at the Society of Illustrators in NYC.

In addition, Kirk has worked as a conceptual designer for a major motion picture, painted album covers and worked with rock groups such as 'KISS', worked as an art director on video projects, and has been involved in toy design and package design for Hasbro.
For the last 18 years, Kirk has concentrated primarily on painting fine art pieces which have shown in galleries across the country and in Japan.

In 1988, he took time to learn the lithographic printing process at the prestigious Atelier Ettinger in NYC and to hand draw all of the lithographic plates for his first original limited print edition.

In 1990, Kirk started a conceptual collaboration with Lilli Farrell, who, along with being a designer, is a spiritual teacher and has been a natural healer since she was a child.

Their teamwork proved to be a catalyst for creating a whole new dimension in Kirk's paintings and in 1993, the paintngs that Kirk and Lilli created together gained immense popularity in Japan. Since then, they have done at least 2 art exhibition tours every year in Japan.

Kirk feels that even since his earlier days as an illustrator, he has remained true to his own aesthetic vision. His gifted sense of light, color, and form gives him a special talent for putting life into everything he paints and creating a truly believable experience that touches the imagination of the viewer and brings a feeling of magic to his work.

Although Kirk enjoys working with oils and watercolor, the majority of his paintings are painted with acrylic paint on board.