Is it possible to discover something new about pop? Just when it seems everything to do with this movement has already been seen, the work of Ricardo Reyes Archila surprises us with a yes.
Popular, young, witty, sexy, fun and glamorous. These were some of the elements with which the “Daddy of Pop”, Richard Hamilton, defined the revolutionary current. And these are precisely the qualities that describe the Colombian painter's work.
Ricardo Reyes shows us the objects and the culture of contemporary life with a style that breaks the mould, turning the ultra famous Converse sneakers into his fetish consumer product.
Inspired, of course, by comics and photography, he goes further and bends the laws of pop to suit himself. He borrows practices from comic panels to give more than one twist to the depiction of icons that will never go out of fashion, like the immortal Marilyn. So he rejuvenates the past, injecting a very contemporary vision into it, and sketches an immediate portrait of the modern mindset.
Skipping expressive formalism, Ricardo Reyes squeezes out, through a cheeky language, the intellectuality of pop art and the appeal of its aesthetic. On his canvases he exalts drawing and uses colour according to what his script needs. Always saturated, his compositions come with very bright tones, but he also plays with calmer ones. Sometimes letting himself be carried away by the elegant combination of black and white. Either way, the result always ends in a striking harmony.
All in all, the Colombian artist's painting is one of those expressions that give depth and meaning to the most popular artistic movement of the 20th century.
If you want to know more about Ricardo Reyes Archila and his work, click here.
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