My painting is built upon dogmas—rules of the game that shape my imaginary world. These rules do not stem from an ideological or conceptual framework but from pictorial experimentation. What begins as intuitive gestures gradually evolves into conscious procedures, allowing me to discover new ways of making and rethinking my practice and the images I create.
Joaquín Reyes is a visual artist who graduated from Universidad Finis Terrae in Chile, with complementary studies in audiovisual arts at the Instituto Universitario Nacional de las Artes (IUNA) in Buenos Aires. He has taught at various Chilean universities and worked for five years as an assistant to artist Ismael Frigerio—an experience that marked a key formative stage in his career.
His practice is grounded in a rigorous exploration of the languages and techniques of painting, developing an imaginary that arises from the experience of making itself. Reyes’s work is rooted in the formulation of internal dogmas: rules that do not stem from an ideological or conceptual program but from material engagement and embodied action. Intuitive gestures, through repetition and observation, evolve into method—into a conscious logic that structures the process without limiting experimentation.
Reyes’s painting relies on two fundamental pillars. The first is a physical procedure: he always paints directly in front of the canvas, with his arm at a right angle to his body, regardless of the support scale—which is often large-format. Compositions begin from the center, and his hand repeats gestures in opposing directions, producing an almost choreographic mechanism. This frontal approach is mirrored in the image itself: bodies, objects, and elements are presented without perspective or depth, rendered flatly and face-on to the viewer. In dialogue with a Cézannian conception of painting, this approach establishes a visual logic akin to that of a scanner, where both artist and viewer share a unified point of view.
Reyes has exhibited his work in Chile, Argentina, Germany, and France, with presentations at institutions such as the Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Visual Arts (MAVI), Centro Cultural Las Condes, Matucana 100, the National Library of Buenos Aires, Savvy Contemporary in Berlin, and the Chapelle de L’Hôtel-Dieu in Dreux.
Joaquín Reyes lives and works in Santiago, Chile