Jacoub Reyes

Reyes hosts workshops independently in the community. They are the recipient of The Puffin Foundation Grant, 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 Archives. He has exhibited regionally, nationally, and internationally. Notable exhibitions include the PaperWest: 3rd National Works on Paper Exhibition juried by Sam Vernon, 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 the University of Central Florida.

Artist Statement

I am a printmaker and installation artist based out of Orlando, Florida. In my current practice, I find and make materials and tools as part of an experimental aspect in my process. I salvage and transform found wood to reflect 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 create 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. Through this method, I can prioritize bridging the gap that connects our present and past with the hope of preventing historic recurrences. 

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 academia to fill in the blanks and apprise the whole 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. I work under the ethos that every woodblock that salvaged lived a life before meeting my tools and studio table. Every concept brought 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. It is my hope to shed light on the spaces our cultures carved for us long before we came along and push, with the necessary tools, further along the path we are meant to follow.