Hi, I'm Jes.I'm an interdisciplinary artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Through weaving, drawing, painting, installation, and moving image, I explore memory, connection, and transformation. My work is guided by curiosity, experimentation, and a love of color, texture, and material exploration.
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ARTIST STATEMENT
My artistic practice explores memory, connection, and transformation through intuitive processes of making. Working across fiber, drawing, painting, collage, installation, and moving image, I create work that emerges through attention, repetition, and a deep engagement with materials.
I am interested in how experiences are gathered, layered, fragmented, and reshaped over time. Rather than illustrating specific narratives, my work creates spaces where personal memory, observation, and imagination can coexist. Color, texture, form, and structure become a visual language for exploring emotional landscapes and the relationships we hold with ourselves, one another, and the environments we inhabit.
In recent years, weaving has become a central focus of my practice. Through handwoven textiles and sculptural fiber forms, I investigate accumulation, attachment, softness, and resilience. Individual strands and repeated gestures build into larger structures that suggest landscapes, vessels, networks, and imagined presences. Visible evidence of process—joins, knots, shifting textures, and layered surfaces—remains an important part of the work, reflecting an ongoing interest in growth, change, and imperfection.
Across all mediums, I approach making as a form of inquiry and connection. I am drawn to the ways creative practice can help us pay closer attention to the world around us, hold complexity, and imagine new possibilities for understanding ourselves and our shared and imaginative experiences.
I am interested in how experiences are gathered, layered, fragmented, and reshaped over time. Rather than illustrating specific narratives, my work creates spaces where personal memory, observation, and imagination can coexist. Color, texture, form, and structure become a visual language for exploring emotional landscapes and the relationships we hold with ourselves, one another, and the environments we inhabit.
In recent years, weaving has become a central focus of my practice. Through handwoven textiles and sculptural fiber forms, I investigate accumulation, attachment, softness, and resilience. Individual strands and repeated gestures build into larger structures that suggest landscapes, vessels, networks, and imagined presences. Visible evidence of process—joins, knots, shifting textures, and layered surfaces—remains an important part of the work, reflecting an ongoing interest in growth, change, and imperfection.
Across all mediums, I approach making as a form of inquiry and connection. I am drawn to the ways creative practice can help us pay closer attention to the world around us, hold complexity, and imagine new possibilities for understanding ourselves and our shared and imaginative experiences.
Biography
Jes Reyes is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and arts administrator based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Working across fiber, drawing, painting, collage, installation, and moving image, Reyes explores memory, emotion, connection, and transformation through intuitive and process-driven approaches. While their current practice is centered in weaving and textile-based forms, their work continues to move fluidly between disciplines, guided by curiosity, experimentation, and a deep engagement with material.
Reyes is drawn to making as a way of paying attention—to color, texture, place, and the small moments that shape our lived experience. Through repetition, accumulation, and daily creative practice, they create works that embrace softness, irregularity, and change. Influenced by observations of the natural world, their work often blurs the boundaries between landscape, object, vessel, and imagined form.
Whether working with yarn, paper, paint, or video, Reyes approaches materials as a language for exploring how memories are gathered, reshaped, and carried forward. Their work invites reflection on the ways we connect to ourselves, one another, and the environments we inhabit.
In addition to maintaining an active studio practice, Reyes works extensively in community arts, supporting artists and expanding access to creative experiences for older adults, people with disabilities, and communities across Minnesota. They believe deeply in the power of art to foster connection, curiosity, and belonging.
Reyes has exhibited work throughout Minnesota and has received support from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional ArtsCouncil. They currently serve as Arts Program Manager at COMPAS, work as an Artist Career Consultant with Springboard for the Arts, and facilitates the Work of Art: Business Skills for Artists curriculum. She holds a Master of Liberal Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and a Bachelor of Arts in Women's Studies and Film and Electronic Media from California State University, Long Beach.
Reyes is drawn to making as a way of paying attention—to color, texture, place, and the small moments that shape our lived experience. Through repetition, accumulation, and daily creative practice, they create works that embrace softness, irregularity, and change. Influenced by observations of the natural world, their work often blurs the boundaries between landscape, object, vessel, and imagined form.
Whether working with yarn, paper, paint, or video, Reyes approaches materials as a language for exploring how memories are gathered, reshaped, and carried forward. Their work invites reflection on the ways we connect to ourselves, one another, and the environments we inhabit.
In addition to maintaining an active studio practice, Reyes works extensively in community arts, supporting artists and expanding access to creative experiences for older adults, people with disabilities, and communities across Minnesota. They believe deeply in the power of art to foster connection, curiosity, and belonging.
Reyes has exhibited work throughout Minnesota and has received support from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Metropolitan Regional ArtsCouncil. They currently serve as Arts Program Manager at COMPAS, work as an Artist Career Consultant with Springboard for the Arts, and facilitates the Work of Art: Business Skills for Artists curriculum. She holds a Master of Liberal Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and a Bachelor of Arts in Women's Studies and Film and Electronic Media from California State University, Long Beach.