León Gallery wishes to thank the artist for confirming the authenticity of this lot

Exhibited: Art Central Hong Kong, placed.(Art Underground Manila), Central Harbourfront, Hong Kong, March 27 - 31, 2019

Literature: Reyes, Marc Aran. Between the Shadow and the Soul. San Juan City: Art Underground, 2021. Full-color photograph on page 112 and painting description on page 113.

ABOUT THE WORK

The empty spaces that largely occupy the works of Marc Aran Reyes are hauntingly dream-like. As he provides a sound visual contrast to such emptiness with a hyperrealist style, Reyes is able to create a balance that draws the viewer towards a meditative state. The compositional isolation he employs thus turns into something more than visual: Isolation in Reyes’ works is felt, as the sentimental space lyrically reaches out to the one who views the work. While Reyes maintains that the meticulously detailed character of his pieces are personally intended as expressions of his own perceived reality instead of mere representation, said reality—as it is presented to the viewer—becomes the audience’s own as the canvas turns into a space for introspection. The work at hand is a piece exhibited at the Art Central Hong Kong in a 2019 solo show entitled Placed. As is typically seen in Reyes’ works, we see here several contrasts at play: detail and emptiness, light and dark, weight and lightness. The composition easily draws the eye to the render of a stone pile deliberately Marc Aran Reyes. © Photo from Art Central Hong Kong 2019. disproportionate to the other elements in the piece. While its arrangement conveys a sense of Zen lightness, the hyperrealistic detail and disproportionate size conveys weight and materiality. The ghostlike figure that lies on its back is a curious image as well with its gossamer lightness that seems to succumb to the solidity of all other objects in the composition. With such contrasts at play in the work, Reyes’ captures all too accurately the weight and lightness that comes with the feeling of alienation, or the existential sense of being-out-of-place. On one hand, this feeling of displacement frees one from the burdensome materiality of the world, but on the other, it also comes with the unbearable weight of nothingness. The works of Marc Aran Reyes often have this penchant for problematizing existence. And yet, Reyes shies away from giving answers or solutions—if they even exist at all. Instead, he opts for capturing feeling, and in this case, what he expresses is simply relatable: to feel like nothing is both heavy and light. (Pie Tiausas)