CYNTHIA REYNOLDS | Not Everywhere is a Place | MELANIE’S OFFICE

January 4 - February 6, 2026

VIEW EXHIBITION

Packing materials have been at the center of my practice since 1998. I relate to them on a deeply personal level, responding intuitively to their forms and spaces in ways that speak to comfort and discomfort - physical, emotional, and psychological. Since moving to New York City in late 2014, I have used only the discarded packaging I encounter by chance. This subtle choreography between my private movements and the public system of waste disposal offers a point of connection with another person and their satisfied desire, both of which are absent and unknown. The space of the packaging remains safe, and I feel a deep pathos toward these abandoned absences that once served to protect something fragile and are now stripped of purpose. The labor and care I bring to transforming them underscore the irony of treating what most consider garbage with such sustained attention.

Cynthia Reynolds (she/her) is a Kentucky-born, New York-based artist who works with discarded packaging she collects from the city streets. She holds an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle (Ceramics), a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute (Ceramics), and a BA from Centre College in Kentucky (English/Studio Art). Recent professional highlights include her solo residency at the Potato Farm Project on the North Fork of Long Island, her collaboration on a new ballet for Norte Maar’s CounterPointe 12, her first published review for Volume III of Peer Review, and her first social performance for Art in Odd Places 2024: CARE. Her work has been featured in exhibitions across the US, most recently with 4heads and 57W57 in New York and the Monira Foundation in Jersey City. She is the recipient of a 2026 NYSCA Support for Artists grant, an Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship from the KY Arts Council, and multiple grants from the KY Foundation for Women.