Damaged Goods
Lara de los Reyes
08 October – 02 November 2014
Curated by
08 October – 02 November 2014

It all started with an ape that learned to speak, as scientists would say when explaining the development of language and, consequently, the rest of civilization that is now known to us. Yet, in the height of language’s complexity, artists are still prone to the hazards of seeking validation in terms of expressing an idea or emotion, which for them cannot be sustained by any word or any phrase in any known dialect.
Lara de los Reyes is one such artist, who in her quest for validation, found herself evolving as an interlocutor of images critical of the very language that is immediately at her disposal: the current and voguish language of a cultural zeitgeist that takes shape in millions of posted messages and pictures through internet social media—the language of the digital versions of ourselves—and through the language of instantly uploaded photographs—the digital reality of what is real.
For her, the practice of making art no longer becomes a question about what is good or bad in painting, but what is good and bad in how we express ourselves through imagery:
In spite of all the topics and images that are trending online, she resorts to the transactions rendered by the undiscriminating algorithm of the search engine—the random image search—the flawed, disjointed, and accidentally purported ideas. It becomes a more viable landscape for her own reality: unexpected, ambiguous, ambivalent, and as a child of a third-world country, exotic and chaotic in equal measure.
With her recent works, she has been trying to sound off what the novelist, Henry Miller, used to say about his method: “Up to present, my idea of collaborating with myself has been to get off the gold standard of literature.” If there is a gold standard in the realm of the visual, then it should be the artworks or images that have earned that golden distinction through a horde of digital affirmations or ‘likes.’
In her paintings, she resorts to an amalgamation of incidental concepts and their images: a palm tree, a paradise, women, exotic animals, a volcano, and bananas. Disjointed yet held together by a simple rule: not seeking for any form of approval, is what seems to bind the rest of Lara de los Reyes’ art, which includes a sculpture molded out of an existing garbage bag while stuffed with trash, a jagged construction made from earthenware, and a small figurine of an ape adorned with miniature paintings.
She affixes texts in her images, which are just as disjointed as the subjects are. With various fonts guised in the same irreverence as her images, the words occupied the canvas as objects, making the meaning behind these phrases as incidental as our notions about what is real.
These amalgams of images, forlorn structures, and primordial abstractions—are these irreconcilable disorders? Irreversible maladies in the discussion of what is acceptable imagery? Damaged goods? The last query is the symbolic and collective name where Lara de los Reyes decidedly let her present works fall under. If these are indeed irreparable constructions, she has given it the attribute of a disease and has likened it to a disorder called aphasia, which is a condition that mainly affects a region of the brain responsible for the production of language—where the formation of words may be present but language comprehension is absent. A person with aphasia could understand words uttered by another person, but cannot put two words together to comprehend the message.
She equates this abnormality to one person’s struggle for expression, the struggle for language amidst the confusion brought about by our technological age. It is the struggle to communicate beyond gestures and the struggle to find the words in expressing abstract ideas. Still, what only comes out are words as words themselves, and in her case, images are drawn as images themselves, which when juxtaposed against another image, all comprehension can be lost just the same:
This primordial instinct, for Lara de los Reyes, is the new evolution towards the validation of thoughts. What is real and what can be expressed are parallel lines that eventually fall into a limbo, and the struggle to make the two meet would only lead to a black hole. And this black hole is riddled with doubts, and these doubts are enamored by thoughts about the gold standards that we have to get off our heads lest we become motionless, inexpressive. Because these gold standards, in time, will only make a monkey of us all.
Exhibition Documentation
Works
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Collection of the Artist
- Warning Sign
Oil on canvas, wood
15" x 18"
2014 - Hangups are Inspiration
Oil on canvas
4' x 6'
2014 - Imagination is a Terrible Thing
Oil on canvas
4' x 6'
2014 - Abstract Tryouts
Oil on canvas
4' x 6'
2014 - The Writing is on the Wall
Oil on canvas
4' x 6'
2014 - The Master Does not Approve
Oil on canvas
4' x 6'
2014 - Dead End
Neon
Variable dimensions
2013 - Who Do I Have to Sleep With
Oil on canvas
4' x 6'
2014 - Chicken Scratches 1
Oil on canvas
15" x 18"
2014 - Chicken Scratches 2
Oil on canvas
15" x 18"
2014 - Chicken Scratches 3
Oil on canvas
15" x 18"
2014 - Chicken Scratches 4
Oil on canvas
15" x 18"
2014 - Burnt Out
Oil on canvas
20" x 24"
2014 - Cave Relic
Oil on canvas
24" x 30"
2014 - Art
Resin
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2014 - Moe
Ceramic earthenware
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2014 - Curly
Ceramic earthenware
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2014 - Larry
Ceramic earthenware
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2014 - Stooge
Ceramic earthenware
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2014
Exhibition View
360° View
Video Catalogue
About the Artist
About the Artists
Lara de los Reyes (b. 1980) currently lives and works in the Philippines. She graduated from the University of the Philippines with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting, and from Assumption College with a Bachelor of Science in Commerce and Entrepreneurship. De los Reyes has participated in solo and group exhibitions at various galleries including Richard Koh Fine Arts, Malaysia, Green Papaya Art Projects, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Mag:net Gallery, and Silverlens Gallery.
Related Exhibitions
About the Artists
About the Artist
Lara de los Reyes (b. 1980) currently lives and works in the Philippines. She graduated from the University of the Philippines with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting, and from Assumption College with a Bachelor of Science in Commerce and Entrepreneurship. De los Reyes has participated in solo and group exhibitions at various galleries including Richard Koh Fine Arts, Malaysia, Green Papaya Art Projects, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Mag:net Gallery, and Silverlens Gallery.