Mindset

Mindset is a collection of colorful abstract paintings by Jes Reyes. The art on display represents how important painting has been for the artist and how the medium has become central to her artistic practice and overall wellbeing. While recently living through loss, painting freed Reyes’ mind from long-term grief, allowing her to appreciate the past while working to move forward.  

“I am an experimental filmmaker that turned to painting in 2015 after my mother passed away due to a terminal illness. As I finished my graduate degree from the University of Minnesota in 2013, I began a path of creating intimate video poems that focused on my experience with grief. Though the work was tremendously important to process living through loss, making these films involved remembering the past; it was something I needed but was often a difficult place for me to go. By adding painting to my approach, I’ve been able to create work that isn’t necessarily related to my mother’s death and our life together, but more about where I am currently, now that my mother is physically gone. Abstract painting has balanced my creative practice and has been very therapeutic for me because of its intuitive nature. It helps me stay in the present and experiment with thoughts as they take shape; all of which creates for me a fluid mindset centered on growth and learning.” - Jes Reyes