Reina Cruz‘s mixed media abstractions are explorations of the formal elements of art — color, shape, line, texture, pattern — which traditionally would have been used together, like tools, to make and build an artwork. Reina, however, takes one or two of these formal elements at a time and makes these formal elements the subjects (and not just the tools) of her artwork. While tradition would dictate that to make a painting, one would use paint to represent an idea or an image, Reina uses the materials themselves (red cloth, blue cloth, shiny plastic, cotton balls etc.) to represent themselves as the subjects of her “paintings.” In giving the formal elements of a physical, three-dimensional presence in her work, Reina explores how a painting can be an object rather than a picture.

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