Damaged Goods

Lara de los Reyes

08 October – 02 November 2014

Curated by 

08 October – 02 November 2014
Damaged Goods: Lara de los Reyes | MO_Space

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:

[M]y works cannot help but raise questions and critical ideas about the value and worth posed by art in the now. Are they acceptable? Or maybe even difficult when everybody else is currently glossing his or her imagery online hoping it’ll virtually reflect into wakeful reality? Who are we? Will my works be posted on Instagram next to a filtered photo of a meal about to be devoured? Fiction can sometimes hold more truth than actuality.

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:

In failing to describe something at the tip of our tongue as well as gesturing with all effort, there are instances when we instead relegate the responsibility of communicating to ink on paper, or even a thin outline through the air using our fingers. Perhaps then, painting / art is what happens when there is no language (words) for imagery. An artist needs that jolt to bring about the disease that relegates him back to primordial instincts—a process that has him groping for the ways to convey an idea.

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.

–Cocoy Lumbao

Exhibition Documentation

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  • 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
    Variable dimensions
    2014    
  • Moe
    Ceramic earthenware
    Variable dimensions
    2014    
  • Curly
    Ceramic earthenware
    Variable dimensions
    2014    
  • Larry
    Ceramic earthenware
    Variable dimensions
    2014    
  • Stooge
    Ceramic earthenware
    Variable dimensions
    2014
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About the Artist

About the Artists

Lara de los Reyes

Lara de los Reyes

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.

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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.

Lara de los Reyes

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