Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Julio Reyes’s Oil Paintings of People in Moments of Solitude

Raised in Los Angeles in a family of immigrants, Julio Reyes says that one of his biggest inspirations is the human ability to overcome adversity. His family's journey to the US and their tumultuous quest for citizenship has always been a guiding light in his work. "I have always been moved by the human capacity to love, dream, and persevere, with great courage and sincerity, in spite of what can often be, a vast and unsympathetic Nature," wrote Reyes in an email to Hi-Fructose. Because of the struggles he has personally faced, Reyes says he has cultivated a keen sense of empathy that he seeks to convey in his oil paintings, which often feature solitary figures in moments of contemplation.

Raised in Los Angeles in a family of immigrants, Julio Reyes says that one of his biggest inspirations is the human ability to overcome adversity. His family’s journey to the US and their tumultuous quest for citizenship has always been a guiding light in his work. “I have always been moved by the human capacity to love, dream, and persevere, with great courage and sincerity, in spite of what can often be, a vast and unsympathetic Nature,” wrote Reyes in an email to Hi-Fructose. Because of the struggles he has personally faced, Reyes says he has cultivated a keen sense of empathy that he seeks to convey in his oil paintings, which often feature solitary figures in moments of contemplation.

Reyes’s paintings look like snapshots from different narratives, though the artist leaves their plots ambiguous. There’s always something happening in his subjects’ facial expressions that prompts a slow, careful viewing of his work. That’s part of Reyes’s goal — to slow down time, make us connect and pay attention. He’s disheartened by our isolation from one another in our increasingly digitized society and he aims to use his work to create that sense of human connection.

“Our old familiar forms of culture and human interaction are now scattered to the wind; crushed in the ever-evolving relentless grind of technology and modern media,” Reyes observed. “We see the world through countless filters, and are increasingly isolated from ourselves and from one another… My content comes from my connection to my subjects — be it through my memories of them, direct observations of them, and/or what they stir in my imagination.”

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Born in Cologne, Germany, former tattoo artist Mike Dargas paints portraits of women dripping in honey. His hyperrealistic oil paintings are painted on a large-scale and appear as impressive photographs. With such provocative titles as "Golden Thoughts," "The Ecstasy of Gold," and "Carpe Diem Baby," the portraits exude a certain opulence, suggesting honey as a metaphor for gold. Using this analogy, his paintings may be interpreted as commentaries on the role of monetary wealth in contemporary society. With closed eyes and probing tongues, Dargas' women become greedy narcissists caught in moments of private ecstasy.
Russian painter Andrey Remnev pulls from both centuries-old approaches and current, graphical influences. Yet, the artist says, the material he uses are decidedly classical in nature: “As painters of the past, I use natural pigments bound with egg yolk.” Remnev was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
A skilled hyperrealist painter, Eloy Morales creates large-scale portraits that play with the expressiveness of the human face. Often using himself as a subject, his mural-scale paintings immerse his viewers in the hairs and wrinkles of his subjects. With each face towering over the viewer, the details becomes much more apparent than what we see in our day-to-day interactions with others. Morales often uses the face as a sort of canvas, as well. For many of his self-portraits, he lathers himself in paint to create an interplay of textures. In other pieces, he covers his sitters' visages with props like googly eyes and butterflies. If you find Morales's skills impressive, he frequently teaches painting workshops in Madrid, where he is based.
UK-based artist Candice Tripp's paintings of youthful characters frolicking through dark forests are at once haunting and whimsical. The children in her works, who often wear masks and anachronistic outfits, appear at once sinister, demure, and naive, sending mixed signals to her viewers. Are they specters who haunt these mythical forests, or lost souls struggling to get out? We last covered Tripp's 2012 solo show at Black Rat Projects here, and last week, she debuted new works for her one-night-only exhibition, "Credulous Morons," at Baltic 39 in Newcastle, where she lives and works. To mark the occasion, today we survey some of the paintings she has created since we heard from her last.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List