Born and based in Auckland, Reynolds attended Elam School of Fine Arts from 1974-78 while working as a freelance photographer. Reynolds began his career painting large abstract colourfields, slowly moving into structural text-based imagery. His contemporary paintings contain literary, religious, art historical and architectural allusions, frequently using both commonplace and classic references. Reynolds tends to experiment with scale in his artworks which range from the size of a stamp to 2 x 12 metres. In 2006, he represented New Zealand at the Sydney Biennale with his work, Cloud. Reynolds has received a number of awards including: the Montana Lindauer Award (1988), a Visual Arts Fellowship from the Arts Council of New Zealand (1993), the Visa Gold Art Award (1994), and was a finalist in the 2002 and 2008 Walters Art Prize. He has also collaborated on a number of projects with some of New Zealand most well-known cultural figures, including Ralph Hotere and Leigh Davis.
