Horacio Reyes Páez: Pursuing Poetry Through Film & Photography

Introspection of Human Existence

Horacio Reyes Páez is an Uruguayan visual artist currently based in Vienna, Austria. He expresses his creativity through photography, film, and music, and believes visual poetry can be a form of healing. Reyes Páez explores different types of photography in his endless pursuit of poetry and combines nature, aerial, portrait, and fashion photography with ease and style.

I think poetry does not belong exclusively to literature, it nurtures all art, and it’s articulated by intuition. Intuition needs to be trained, and it can become an organ of perception. I try to connect with that.

With soft and delicate palettes, the wise use of space, and stories that continue behind the image, Reyes Páez’s works invite to connect and introspect. It’s a personal language developed over time, which takes a lot of training and courage. His lonely characters get lost in vast spaces just to reveal unseen beauty and sensitive insights into human existence.

Nature has a huge role in my film and photographic work, but the main element is the introduction of the human being in the frame. Sometimes I am attracted to frame human loneliness in huge spaces. Some others I put my lens the closest I can get towards a body. The idea of us being a lonely grain of sand in the universe invites us to connect with our deeper self. And this I try to register. Loneliness is a necessary stage to develop this connection to oneness.

Reyes Páez creates atmospheric photos and movies, working for fashion and commercial campaigns or personal projects. It’s a challenging experience for the artist, but this mix of commercial work and art has helped him find his voice as an artist and develop a unique signature. It’s also rewarding to know that your works get to so many people, and that you can infuse the world of advertising with artistic approaches and storytelling.

I realized that inspiration comes through training and courage. If I want to be a multidisciplinary artist, I need to be trained in my craft to be able to articulate inspiration. So I think of my work as an everyday job of research and training. The other important tool is courage. There is no failure in having courage. You will always learn something well if you have the courage to tell something.

Recently, Horacio Reyes Páez has completed his third film based on the quarantine period, a mix of documentary, fiction, fantasy, and poetry. Pillow (2020) tells the story of a single character who develops a relationship with his pillow to enter the world of dreams. Even in difficult times, the artist finds ways to create and be an inspiration for all of us.

Horacio Reyes Páez

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Article written by Monica Radulescu