Born in Paris, France, in 1990, Reen Barrera as a kid didn’t have a lot of toys growing up, he vaguely remember owning two or three pieces of action figures, he consider himself as a “toy deprived kid”. bored of doing nothing at home, he started making his own toys using found objects not knowing that he is starting to become an artist.

He took art classes in high school and attended college studying Fine arts major in advertising. before becoming a full-time artist in 2014, his professional work consisted of sculpting bobble head portraits, graphic design and illustrations.

Artist Statement

There is this idiom that says “It’s written all over your face” which gave me an idea that regardless of what we say, our true feelings can still be emancipated by our facial expressions. For me, it’s a silent way of communicating something without noise. It is where I find the inspiration to literally remember those facial expressions, create an artwork out of it, and mix it up with different symbols and patterns.

Us human beings have the same mold, we all have the same attributes, what differentiate us is the circumstances that we are born into. And one thing that I want to emphasize is the amount of detail each piece have, like us, some have some while some have most.

In some artworks, I discreetly take on socio economic classes. Some people are born rich, mid class, some are poor. But the common ground is, everybody will have no choice but to deal with it. So I cover all their heads with a canvas cloth to give OhLala a freedom to paint their own symbols on their heads as if they are designing their own fate. And I guess that is what we all have in common, the power to make things happen for ourselves.

Acrylic, oil, and aerosol paint are my choice of medium in painting, a lot of times I often let accidents like drips smudges and splatter help me to decipher on what to do, I do start with a very loose abstract figures to overcome the fear of an empty canvas staring at me. In this collection of work, I try to become personal as possible, using ohlala as my main character to depict some of my experiences that leads me to where I am right now as an artist.

He is currently Represented by Vinyl on Vinyl