2023 RECEPIENT - CREATIVE SUPPORT FOR INDIVIDUALS - MINNESOTA STATE ARTS BOARD
Photo by Marilyn Lamoreaux
Creative practice
Bio:
Jes Reyes is an interdisciplinary artist, artist organizer, and art facilitator. She identifies as queer, feminist, and punk. Her artwork is rooted in play, vulnerability, experimentation, collaboration, and the blending of disciplines. She has exhibited and screened her artwork throughout the Twin Cities. An extension of Jes’s art practice is in community organizing and resource building for artists. She is the founder of Moonplay Cinema, a support system for women, nonbinary, trans, and other artists marginalized due to gender. As Art Supervisor at Fresh Eye Arts, she co-leads a progressive art studio program supporting artists with disabilities with Lauren Hughes. Prior to that, she coordinated Avivo ArtWorks, a multifaceted art studio for artists living with mental illness. Jes also provides support to artists as an Artist Career Consultant with Springboard for the Arts. She is passionate about bringing people together, equitable arts leadership, and career services for all artists.
Jes is originally from Southern California and has called St. Paul, Minnesota home since 2005. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Film & Electronic Arts and Women Studies from California State University, Long Beach, and a Master of Liberal Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Recently, she served as a juror for the Red Wing Artist Poet Collaboration and is currently a juror for Franconia Sculpture Park's 5 Minute Film Fest. Jes is writing You're a Filmmaker, You're an Artist, a professional practices publication for moving image creators, releasing in spring 2024.
Jes is originally from Southern California and has called St. Paul, Minnesota home since 2005. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Film & Electronic Arts and Women Studies from California State University, Long Beach, and a Master of Liberal Studies from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Recently, she served as a juror for the Red Wing Artist Poet Collaboration and is currently a juror for Franconia Sculpture Park's 5 Minute Film Fest. Jes is writing You're a Filmmaker, You're an Artist, a professional practices publication for moving image creators, releasing in spring 2024.
Artist Statement:
I am an interdisciplinary artist currently creating with textiles, mixed media art, and video. Vibrant, moody colors, grid-like patterns, and organic and familiar shapes are my attempts to practice curiosity and give attention to the unintentional. I create moments of surprise with artwork that inspire and connect visually to playful whimsy, delight, and movement. An underpinning to my work is pensively and inquisitively nostalgic.
I mark space and distance through the visual components of my artwork. I honor making and its process by showing its handmade, sometimes messy, and emotional qualities. I am interested in the curve of the line, whether made through drawing, painting, or weaving. I am interested in the transformation of flatness, using thread, shape, or the wind to evoke ideas of memory, connections to the landscape, or experiences related to the passage of time. I leave threads of yarn hanging unevenly. I use repurposed materials. I believe in the beauty of watercolor’s unpredictability. I seek to find the possibility of merging fiber arts with mixed media art. Sculptural textile pieces and abstract works made with water-based mediums on paper have been my recent creations applying these approaches.
Landlines (working title) is my current project bringing my curiosities in abstract painting, moving image work, and intuitive weaving into one expansive project. The project is pushing and challenging me to recontextualize how I use materials through recycling and being eco-minded. I question and skirt the line between art and craft with this project. My approach and material choices nod to the notion of domesticity, craft, feminism, environmentalism, and the pursuit of art as a form of communication and experience. Heightened with this new body of work, I am consciously working towards engaging tapestry with moving images and tapestry with sculpture. My works on paper are in conversation with this work through diaristic forms. I am at a pivotal moment in my practice; I am inching toward something new, which is exciting for me, particularly as an artist who thrives while blending disciplines.
I mark space and distance through the visual components of my artwork. I honor making and its process by showing its handmade, sometimes messy, and emotional qualities. I am interested in the curve of the line, whether made through drawing, painting, or weaving. I am interested in the transformation of flatness, using thread, shape, or the wind to evoke ideas of memory, connections to the landscape, or experiences related to the passage of time. I leave threads of yarn hanging unevenly. I use repurposed materials. I believe in the beauty of watercolor’s unpredictability. I seek to find the possibility of merging fiber arts with mixed media art. Sculptural textile pieces and abstract works made with water-based mediums on paper have been my recent creations applying these approaches.
Landlines (working title) is my current project bringing my curiosities in abstract painting, moving image work, and intuitive weaving into one expansive project. The project is pushing and challenging me to recontextualize how I use materials through recycling and being eco-minded. I question and skirt the line between art and craft with this project. My approach and material choices nod to the notion of domesticity, craft, feminism, environmentalism, and the pursuit of art as a form of communication and experience. Heightened with this new body of work, I am consciously working towards engaging tapestry with moving images and tapestry with sculpture. My works on paper are in conversation with this work through diaristic forms. I am at a pivotal moment in my practice; I am inching toward something new, which is exciting for me, particularly as an artist who thrives while blending disciplines.
| JES REYES CV |
If you are looking to contact me, please scroll down to find the contact form.
Beneath the Skin (Clip) (2016) (silent)
News & Upcoming Events
A Common Thread
August 1 – October 14, 2023
Public artist reception: Tuesday, August 8, 2023, 5 – 7 pm at Textile Center
A Common Thread, is the Textile Center's annual member exhibition. It returns for its 23rd year — and this is their BIGGEST year of the exhibition yet! Always a favorite, this exhibition showcases a fabulous array of fiber art created by Textile Center’s innovative members.
More info here: https://textilecentermn.org/acommonthread/
Each year, over a hundred artworks (this year, 166!) adorn the walls of Textile Center’s galleries in an exhibition that is as diverse in technique as it is prolific in scope. Techniques include stitching, quilting, knitting, crochet, sewing, weaving, dyeing, felting, needlework, hand construction, polymer clay, lacemaking, basketry, beading, sculpture, mixed media, and more.
(Image: Fluff! by Chiaki O’Brien)
August 1 – October 14, 2023
Public artist reception: Tuesday, August 8, 2023, 5 – 7 pm at Textile Center
A Common Thread, is the Textile Center's annual member exhibition. It returns for its 23rd year — and this is their BIGGEST year of the exhibition yet! Always a favorite, this exhibition showcases a fabulous array of fiber art created by Textile Center’s innovative members.
More info here: https://textilecentermn.org/acommonthread/
Each year, over a hundred artworks (this year, 166!) adorn the walls of Textile Center’s galleries in an exhibition that is as diverse in technique as it is prolific in scope. Techniques include stitching, quilting, knitting, crochet, sewing, weaving, dyeing, felting, needlework, hand construction, polymer clay, lacemaking, basketry, beading, sculpture, mixed media, and more.
(Image: Fluff! by Chiaki O’Brien)
Momentary Certainties
Eagan Art House
Opening Event with live dance performances: Saturday, September 9, 1-3 PM
Exhibition Dates: Sept 9 - October 26
Join us Saturday, September 9th on the grounds of Eagan Art House For our Art Block kick-off: Momentary Certainties Opening Event. Free and for all ages.
Connect with art pieces installed in and among the MN prairie-scape, see live dance performances, and do a hands on-activity for the whole family. Everything is centered on the theme "Momentary Certainties," which explores the interplay and juxtaposition of the ephemeral with the permanent.
This will be the 3rd time I have participated in this show. My new piece is almost 5 feet tall!
Eagan Art House
Opening Event with live dance performances: Saturday, September 9, 1-3 PM
Exhibition Dates: Sept 9 - October 26
Join us Saturday, September 9th on the grounds of Eagan Art House For our Art Block kick-off: Momentary Certainties Opening Event. Free and for all ages.
Connect with art pieces installed in and among the MN prairie-scape, see live dance performances, and do a hands on-activity for the whole family. Everything is centered on the theme "Momentary Certainties," which explores the interplay and juxtaposition of the ephemeral with the permanent.
This will be the 3rd time I have participated in this show. My new piece is almost 5 feet tall!
In Rotation Group Exhibition
Augsburg University
Christiansen Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 23, 7:30 PM
September 21–December 8
In Rotation is an invitation to slow down and observe the movements happening around and within oneself over the course of a year. Participating artists dedicated a sketchbook for a one-year exploration of these shifts: the micro and macro movements in the everyday from the rhythmic patterns of physical bodies, to the subtle changes in perspectives, to the constant celestial rotations that move the very earth where we stand.
The pandemic brought a disruption to the movement in our lives; it varied from slowing down to the point of isolation to speeding up to the point of burn out. This project is an invitation to observe and be aware of these movements in order to calibrate and connect as we continue to rotate together.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Allison Spence
Alyssa Baguss
Andi Valdes Valdes
Caitlin Skaalrud
Elizabeth Ihekoronye
Galilee Peaches
Indra Ramassamy
Jamie Kubat
Jes Reyes
Jordyn Brennan
Lois Eliason
Lora Hlavsa
Lucino Sosa
Lynda Acosta
Lyz Wendland
Melanie Pankau
Nancy Hollinghurst
Olivia House
Regula Russelle
robert tom
Samuel Evensen
Silent Fox
Augsburg University
Christiansen Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 23, 7:30 PM
September 21–December 8
In Rotation is an invitation to slow down and observe the movements happening around and within oneself over the course of a year. Participating artists dedicated a sketchbook for a one-year exploration of these shifts: the micro and macro movements in the everyday from the rhythmic patterns of physical bodies, to the subtle changes in perspectives, to the constant celestial rotations that move the very earth where we stand.
The pandemic brought a disruption to the movement in our lives; it varied from slowing down to the point of isolation to speeding up to the point of burn out. This project is an invitation to observe and be aware of these movements in order to calibrate and connect as we continue to rotate together.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Allison Spence
Alyssa Baguss
Andi Valdes Valdes
Caitlin Skaalrud
Elizabeth Ihekoronye
Galilee Peaches
Indra Ramassamy
Jamie Kubat
Jes Reyes
Jordyn Brennan
Lois Eliason
Lora Hlavsa
Lucino Sosa
Lynda Acosta
Lyz Wendland
Melanie Pankau
Nancy Hollinghurst
Olivia House
Regula Russelle
robert tom
Samuel Evensen
Silent Fox
Pocket Size Weaving
Free workshop with Jes Reyes
Fresh Eye Gallery
Sunday, October 8, 1 - 3:30PM
FULL - New workshops coming soon!
In this 2.5-hour gathering, you will explore the basics of frame loom weaving and make your very first unique wall hanging. The materials and your intuition will guide you. Intuitive weaving encourages you to slow down your thoughts and be in the moment. Each participant will leave with a tote full of supplies that you can use to continue weaving on your own, including a portable loom you can use over and over again.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Free workshop with Jes Reyes
Fresh Eye Gallery
Sunday, October 8, 1 - 3:30PM
FULL - New workshops coming soon!
In this 2.5-hour gathering, you will explore the basics of frame loom weaving and make your very first unique wall hanging. The materials and your intuition will guide you. Intuitive weaving encourages you to slow down your thoughts and be in the moment. Each participant will leave with a tote full of supplies that you can use to continue weaving on your own, including a portable loom you can use over and over again.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
ART FACILITATION, Projet coordination, AND PRESENTATION
I believe the heart of my creativity is socially engaged. I like to facilitate art experiences, engage artists in community building, and share artwork with others. I do this work independently, through partnerships, and with organizations I work for.
createcreating opportunities to explore through art
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organizeproject coordination and artist organizing
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SHAREbuilding connections through sharing
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community work
Moonplay cinema I am the founder of Moonplay Cinema, a support system and community for women, nonbinary, trans, and other artists and filmmakers marginalized due to gender. We are currently developing professional development opportunities and will hold a screening in early 2024.
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fresh eye artsAs Art Supervisor at Fresh Eye Arts, I co-manage a progressive art studio program supporting artists with disabilities and Fresh Eye Gallery, a community art space in Minneapolis with Lauren Hughes. In this role, I am also the coordinator of Eye to Eye, an exhibition project that pairs 2 artists together who have never met before to collaborate and create new artwork.
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Artist career support
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Springboard for the Arts - Fall Fest
Saturday, September 30, 1-5pm Central Time 262 University Ave West , Saint Paul, MN 55103 This free event will feature artist-led activities, demos, performances, installations, and more. Meet Springboard Artist Fellows and Cohort Members, explore our current and new programs, and celebrate #CreativePeoplePower with our staff, board, and Saint Paul neighbors. I will be offering free mini consultations from 3-5.pm Get to know our supports and receive quick answers to questions you might have about your artistic goals. Get your tickets for the free Fall Fest at Springboard for the Arts! Hennepin Art Salon - Crit Corner Thursday, November 2, 6 - 8 PM 900 Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403 I will be returning to this art event at The Hennepin to facilitate personal art critiques. We will have a 10 minute conversation about your artwork one-on-one. You can come with a series of questions you have for me about your work. You might want more of an interpretation of your work. This is a space of support so I want to work with you to create this exchange as an opportunity for you to talk with me about your art. You can bring your art or digital images to this event.A sign up form is coming soon! |
Since 2017, I have been providing Artist Career Consultations through Springboard for the Arts. In a consultation, I get to know you and your work, help you set goals, and develop realistic strategies to help you reach those goals. I use Springboard's Work of Art Toolkit as a resource during these meetings. I also bring my own experience as a self-employed artist and the knowledge I have gained as an arts administrator and supporting other artists over the last 10 years. My approach is person-centered, patient, resourceful, and non-judging.
I help artists with career planning, pricing, marketing, time management, grantwriting, portfolio development, project coordination, exhibition planning, community organizing, and more. I can meet with you once, weekly, monthly, once a year. It's up to you as long as our schedules align. Springboard for the Arts offers free or low-cost artist career consultations to artists, artist entrepreneurs, and creative small business owners. Meetings can be held over Zoom, the phone, or in person depending on the situation. MN-based artists can start with one free 1-hour consultation. |
Stay connected. Receive occasional updates by email.
FIND ME ON:
Jes Reyes is a fiscal year 2023 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Copyright Jes Reyes Art LLC 2023