DREAM MACHINE by Edwin Tres Reyes

“People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.” – Neil Gaiman

One way to moderate an artist is through his power as a storyteller. After all, all artists work with their own experience, constructing a visualized dream. The audience, therefore, is compelled to journey through the world the artist creates—in effect a character in the artist’s story. It doesn’t really matter if there is no logical outcome, or that the necessities of a plot structure are seemingly abandoned. Dreams, after all, never follow the elements of a plot, yet somehow people can still recall and narrate what happens. And this does not dilute the emotional impact of the experience.

In this case, artist Edwin Tres Reyes (b. 1972) is a dream factory, with a unique vision that is combined with a capable technique to realize it visually. John Lennon once said: “A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” Through Tres Reyes’ ability as an artist, these dreams – these pocket narratives – find their form in canvas and resin sculptures.

Thus, Dream Machine is more than a visual art exhibition. At its conceptual core, it seeks to capture the zeitgeist of an age where stories were told in their purest form—as the product of dreams. Utilizing a distinct technique, Tres Reyes creates canvas works that also find their volumetric form in identical resin sculptures. These are considered one works, symbolic of the process by which an individual dream becomes a collective reality.

Opening on 6:30 in the evening, Wednesday, May 29, 2013, the works in Tres Reyes’ Dream Machine find an appropriate home in Vinyl on Vinyl Gallery, in collaboration with 371 Art Space. Inside the artist community in Makati known as The Collective, Vinyl on Vinyl and 371 Art Space are among some of the most avant-garde independent shops and galleries. The Collective is located at 7274 Malugay Street, San Antonio Village, Makati City. They may be reached through landline at 727-8182 or email at 371art@gmail.com.  

Edwin Tres Reyes (b. 1972) is a product of the Fine Arts program at the University of Santo Tomas. Tres Reyes has won several awards in his career, including the On-the Spot Drawing Competition of the Central Bank of the Philippines (1986), the GSIS High School Competition (1988-1989), the Art Association of the Philippines Apec Stamp Design Competition Award (1996), and was a semi-finalist in the 1996 and 2001 Metrobank Young Painters’ Annual National Painting Competition. A Founding Member of the Guevarra Group of Artists, Tres Reyes has had several one-man shows to his credit and has participated in numerous group shows in the Philippines and in Singapore.

The works on display at Dream Machine mirrors the artist’s experiences as an artist juggling with the demands of the advertising industry. He infuses his practice with a narrative edge that is lined with the aesthetic nous of surrealism which lend a subliminal subtext to his works. His style recalls the a tradition of illustration and printing, acknowledging the importance those mediums play in crafting narrative. The artist works with the ideas of desire, and thus his works show characters at the onset of journeys. Witty and light-hearted political, his works and their openness to various interpretations make conversation pieces among his audience.

The artist’s approach to Dream Machine is to examine the manifestation of individual dreams, represented by canvas works, into collective reality—in this case, the volumetric representation of the canvas work as resin sculptures. These two tangible dream products are taken as one artwork—and available to collectors accordingly.

It is a unique approach that makes Tres Reyes’ Dream Machine an interesting show—one that definitely should not be missed.