Images

Abstract

Images Tony De Los Reyes Click for larger view View full resolution Tony de los Reyes, BORDER THEORY (CALEXICO SUPERMOON 3), 2015 Oil on muslin panel, 29 × 29 in. (Page 4) Click for larger view View full resolution Tony de los Reyes, BORDER THEORY (CALEXICO SUPERMOON 3), 2015 Oil on muslin panel, 29 × 29 in.(Page 5) Click for larger view View full resolution IMAGE (next pages): Tony de los Reyes, BORDER THEORY (INDEFINITE ZONE/BLACK), 2013 Dye and oil on linen, 77 × 116 in. (Page 24) (Page 25) Click for larger view View full resolution IMAGE: Tony de los Reyes, BORDER THEORY (RIO GRANDE/COLORSCALE 9), 2014 Dye, acrylic ink, and oil on linen with painted frame, 15 5/8 × 10 7/8 in. (Page 53) Click for larger view View full resolution Tony de los Reyes, BORDER THEORY (AMBIENT CROSSING/VINCULO AMBIENTAL), 2013 Dye and oil on linen, 60 × 70 1/2 in. (Page 78) Page 79) Click for larger view View full resolution IMAGE: Tony de los Reyes, BORDER THEORY (RIO GRANDE/YELLOW LIGHT), 2013 Dye and oil on linen, 45 × 31 in. Page 97 >> Border Theory Since 2013 I have been producing artwork that deals with issues arising from the US-Mexico border. My work addresses the implications associated with the delineation of this immense geographic space, either by the fortifications of the border wall, the Rio Grande, or sociopolitical transmissions that permeate collateral zones associated with the border. References to the political articulations of space, such as Henri Lefebvre’s statement, “the space of a (social) order is hidden in the order of space,” have influenced me to conceive of the US-Mexico border as a region of tragic architectures and ecstatic pathologies. Ultimately, my work begins to outline heterodoxies in political aesthetics that are tied to specific topographies. To date, the Border Theory series consists almost entirely of paintings that contain fragments of satellite images of the border. Many are completely abstracted, considering the border as hyperbolic zones of tension manifested in the border’s bifurcating line. The chromatic “colorscale” paintings contain similar examples of satellite images, this time with topographic information silk-screened onto the surface. The Calexico Supermoon paintings are works whose images come from personal photographs taken at midnight twenty miles east of Calexico, California, a border city in a rugged part of the south western desert, during the “super moon,” the closest distance between the earth and moon during the year. Here, the traditionally fixed notions of isolated colors are disrupted through the introduction of their complements, creating both attraction and repulsion. These, as well as all the works in the Border Theory series, continue to discuss the role of perception in the apprehension of space. They also reflect the current geopolitical climate, and investigate the interrelatedness of place, identity, and aesthetic production. >> Tony de los Reyes’s previous series was the subject of the exhibition and catalog Chasing Moby-Dick: Selected Works by Tony de los Reyes (2010) at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, which traveled to the New Britain Museum of American of Art in Connecticut. Reviews and articles have appeared in such publications as Art in America, Artforum.com, X-TRA, Modern Painters, and the Los Angeles Times. De los Reyes received an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. He lives and works in Los Angeles. www.tonydelosreyes.com [End Page 98] Click for larger view View full resolution IMAGE: Tony de los Reyes, BORDER THEORY (RIO GRANDE/COLORSCALE 5), 2014 Dye, acrylic ink, and oil on linen with painted frame, 15 5/8 × 10 7/8 in. Page 99 Copyright © 2015 The Johns Hopkins University Press