2017 DUMA Biennial artist, Trey Reis

Trey Reis, Des Moines, Iowa
Blue Stitch Study, 2017, cross stitch patterns, 24×18

Trey Reis is a visual and sound artist from Des Moines. Working with collage techniques, his work explores the deconstruction and re-contextualization of 20th and 21st century media forms, both printed and recorded.

The process is one of abstraction, wherein varying eras of formal and purposeful content are used to create spaces and images denying recognizable forms.

The study began with two sound installations, “Century Sound” (2014), and “Muzak” (2015). The installations transformed gallery rooms into listening spaces for audiences to experience sound collages. Old sources of recorded media were combined into layered pieces without formal beginning or end, wherein sounds were presented side-by-side without context of era.

In 2016, the exploration of abstraction led to an ongoing series of visual collages re-contextualizing decades of printed media into abstract forms. The process serves to strip each individual piece of its era, and replace it into a postmodern framework, unshaped by the visual divide between content from different decades.