Lyon City Artwork

1943 - Born in Colombia (South America)
since 1992 - living and working in Switzerland.

Artist formed by different cultures and possessing a solid ability of techniques , she expresses herself either through drawing , engraving and painting. She interprets the real in order to find it back through a vision which makes the image glide imperceptibly towards a form of abstraction.

Carmen Reyes's figurative work , far from being picturesque , refuses any talkative and servile transcription of the real. The artist approaches the viewed things in a shaded language. The subjects are sober without any annotation of decorum or accessories in order to broach in a better way , a furtive reality ,a stolen moment from a world that too often forgets to rest in order to observe.

Her sources of inspiration come from magazines , newspapers taken from the topical interests or simply suggested by daily life. Through her look , she gives rise to a personal dimension and makes her own a situation where the human body is always a primordial motif. She pursues her impression and emotion through these corporal postures of which she gives us only some essential signs.

It's most of all in her way of painting and of playing on the textures of the paper that Carmen Reyes reveals her peculiarity. The choice of a graphical support to elaborate her compositions is significant of her style.

Not a single coloured area invades the image , it's the line that dominates. The bodies get mixed up with space and all the figurative details are veiled. The subjects are sober whereas the rendering is extremely vivid. A singular workmanship that rhythms and unifies the picture elements and offers a relief work on the surfaces. Thus , the interpretation of Carmen Reyes's work of art opens itself to emotion.

Nadia El Beblawi