What would you create with a stainless steel water bottle and some grainy photographs? Honolulu's luxury department store, Neiman Marcus, recently asked this question of 20 handpicked local artists. They were given a stainless steel water bottle, a stack of photos from the spring runway fashion shows and the challenge to make art from these two oddly paired vestiges of inspiration. Most entries were fairly straightforward: a painted bottle with a one-word thought provoking messages written on the side. Some went a little farther, putting the bottle inside a decorated mannequin's leg for example. Chris Reiner's sculpture left no trace of the bottle at all. Instead, he decided to strip the bottle of its color and deconstruct it completely. Like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, he built a creature from the parts and pieces in his workshop and brought her to life. The mechanical goddess saunters down the vintage stove door runway, turning her steel body as she swings her feathered hip to wink at you with her water faucet head. Her name is Hydra and she's got attitude. This is perfect Chris Reiner Obtanium.
Finding the life in discarded pieces of modernity is Reiner's gift. Like the tinkering scientist in a post-apocalyptic world, Reiner finds inspiration in the wreckage of our disposable culture. He salvages a conglomeration of what most would deem junk and from this panoply of random items creates art. They are pieces that carry a message with playful humor and left-leaning political ideals always present in the work. A sculpture about homelessness, "A drift on a Chinatown junk" was initially displayed at Mark's Garage and then found its way to the street where someone quickly moved in and set up house. Made from discarded wood and other objects it resembled a boat; the roof and sail plastered with carefully selected newspaper articles reflecting the chaotic and often ironic state of our world. Another piece called "Tipping Point" uses a discarded gas pump with a moving lever made of bowling balls to illustrate the idea that so much of our current environmental destruction hinges on our use of fossil fuels for energy.
Ingenious in his re-use of materials, Obtanium sculpture is made of found and recycled objects; a discarded piece of something, usually found on the side of the road, in a dumpster, left behind because it is no longer considered useful. As Reiner muses in his artists' statement, "I hope that preconceived notions of that particular object having one function can be discarded."
I arrive at Chris Reiner's studio situated in an inconspicuous part of Pearl City, nestled in the middle of bustling commerce. It's an oasis of creativity in an unexpected, but perfectly suited atmosphere. Stacked bins of Obtanium material line the walls. At first the riot of random items seems just that, random. But as Chris takes me through his workshop the thoughtful organization becomes clear. He has separate bins full of metal bits, scissors, tweezers and pocketknives. There is a bin for electronic equipment, old cell phones, camera parts, and odd bits of larger wholes. And a bin for random parts of things like typewriter keys, small light bulbs that once lived in an old film reel and deconstructed watch parts. On the wall above his head is a salvaged sign that reads simply, "Help."
He tells me that as a kid his family moved around a lot and he was always the new kid at school. Finding diversion from the cruelty of children, he would often keep his head down, finding discarded objects and playing with them. Letting his imagination run, he found the life in these objects and that fascination has never left. After high school on O'ahu he left for Florida and the Ringling School of Art where he was introduced to the concept of Obtanium, taught in class as a word used to describe found objects. Developing his own definition of the term, he realized that he had found his artistic calling. Returning to Kaua'i first and then O'ahu in 2005, he began building a name for himself as a local artist.
As I walk around the workshop, I see that he is working on a new piece. It's made of small wooden eggs held inside a round pan with a propeller on the top that looks like an American flag. The eggs are barely held inside the pot as it careens forward, suspended from the wall in mid-air. As yet unnamed, this piece speaks to all the issues on our plate in America. There's the idea that we're flying haphazardly forward just barely managing to keep all the eggs in the basket. It's a perfect piece of Obtanium. Humorous and ingenious, it is beautiful in its wisdom, a wisdom found in the life lived by all the objects involved. I find myself musing that Chris Reiner is a rare sort of modern day alchemist. His gift is here, found in the transformation of a heap of indistinguishable, discarded industrial life into his very own artistic gold.