A solo-exhibit of photographs by multi-media artist Justine Reyes.

Ms. Reyes lives and works in New York City. She recently received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her BFA from Syracuse University in 2001. In addition to national and international solo shows, Ms. Reyes participated in The 5th Annual Barcelona International Festival of Contemporary Art, the Proyecto Circo at the 8th Havana Biennale in Havana, Cuba and the exhibition Fragments of Contemporary Urban Experience, which traveled from San Francisco City Hall to the Michaelis Gallery in South Africa. Reyes’ most recent work, Mask Series, will be featured in the January 2006 edition of Le Book, an international high-end fashion magazine based in New York, Paris, and London.

For the past two years Ms. Reyes has been painstakingly photographing and documenting her immediate family and their belongings. For her exhibit at Invisible NYC she will present My Uncle Vinny, a series that juxtaposes large-scale color portraits of her uncle with smaller photographs of his personal objects. Each object is a unique treasure, an artifact deeply imbued with implied history and usage. Through the camera’s lens they are taken from the mundane plane of their everyday existence and transformed into monumental icons. Photographed in a stark white environment, they reflect on the sacred, retaining a mysterious quality of nostalgia and isolation – as each object had possessed a long life but has now been abandoned.

The portraits portray her uncle in a similar reverential context. The viewer is confronted head-on by his unwavering gaze. He is isolated from any external environment. His purpose is unknown implying a saintly, otherworldly quality.

The photographs reflect on the accumulation of items throughout life and their relationship to a sense of estrangement as one ages. Just as the personal items show dust, chips and other signs of wear, the portraits embrace the flaws and signs of ageing.