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Jacoub Reyes hosts workshops independently in the community and is the founder of Temporary Stay Residency and Weekend Press. He is a recipient of The Puffin Foundation, The Pew Collective Grant, Allies in Arts Grant, United States Artists Grant, Immerse Artist Grant, Awesome Grant, Southern Graphics International Grant, and J.R. Hopes Scholarship. His work is held in several public and private collections, including MassArt, Morgan Conservatory, UCF, Frontera Galeria Urbana, The City of Orlando’s Public Art Collection, and Hoopsnake Press. He has exhibited regionally, nationally, and internationally. Notable exhibitions include the International Print Center New York, Umbra: New Prints for a Dark Age juried by Alison Saar; Arte Insurgente/ Tres Gatos Press Residency and installation in Guadalajara, Mexico; Southern Graphics Conference International’s El Encuentro beach installation in San Juan, Puerto Rico; and PaperWest juried by Willie Cole. He holds a BFA in Drawing and Printmaking from University of Central Florida.
Two Figures (after Durer)
woodblock print on Masa
81” x 31”
See his work in WTP Vol. IX #10
“As a printmaker, I find and make materials and tools as part of an experimental aspect in my process. I salvage and transform found wood as a reflection of how marginalized and oppressed communities have been cast aside throughout history. With these, I carve detailed large-scale allegorical woodcuts based on the acculturation of the Caribbean and the world at large. I have found that using religious and mythological archetypes creates visual tropes that parallel the experiences of marginalized groups, allowing for a shared and deeper understanding of topics once thought of only for academics. From the sides of forgotten buildings to interactive handmade structures, my installation work incorporates sound recordings, prints, and video elements that meld personal histories with global shifts.
“…My body of work thus far has developed from a deeply personal space. It blends together the experience-based as well as the academically informed. As a child of immigrants from distinct regions that have experienced colonization, both the Caribbean and Pakistan, I have gathered my family’s oral history and turned to academics to fill in the blanks and apprise the full story. This is how I have found myself in a space that is uniquely mine and yet a story that parallels and transcends for marginalized people to find solace in. I work under the ethos that every woodblock that is salvaged lived a life before it met my tools and studio table; every concept that I bring to life existed outside of my head as a reality faced or interpreted by ancestors long ago; every conversation of oppression, the intersection of religion and activism, how politics have corrupted and yet propelled countries forward in development… these are all conversations that have echoed throughout time as culture has shifted, albeit sometimes like a pendulum.”
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