Raf Reyes, a 23-year-old French artist with Romanian origins, exhibits his multidisciplinary creations at Ghica Victoria Palace

Raf Reyes, a 23-year-old French multidisciplinary artist and designer, exhibits his works on the border between pop art, surreal and baroque on June 9-17th at the Ghica Victoria Palace in Bucharest. The artist represents the Darmo Gallery, a French gallery that presents its artists for the first time in Romania.

“Revival” allows us to retrace this artist’s early and atypical career, who is strongly attached to Romania, the country of origin of his ancestors. “Revival” echoes one of the essential artistic revolutions: the Renaissance.

You can visit the exhibition between June 9-17th, 2022, 11.00 and 19.00 – at Ghica Victoria Palace, Nicolae lorga Street, Bucharest.

“As much a passionate photographer as a designer, he navigates with finesse between the different mediums of expression: mixes the old with the new, exploring the fundamental relationship between the creator and his creation. Raf Reyes’ work aims to represent a world where all the opposites would be harmoniously possible. Press plates, collages, photos, paintings, and quotes are all characteristic elements of his digital compositions. His works are accumulative, sporadic, and poetic. Raf explores the emerging trends of digital art. His work is full of references to small «madeleines de Proust», intended to trigger tropisms and reminiscences in the viewer. The resulting «photo-manipulations» are at the border of pop art, surrealism or baroque,” states Marius Jacob-Gismondi, co-founder at The Darmo Gallery, the exhibition curator.

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In 2020, at just 23 years old, Raf Reyes launched veryrare.co, a ready-to-wear brand that links the world of contemporary fashion and that of ancient museum art.

Raf Reyes’ artistic career probably wouldn’t have been born so soon if Darmo hadn’t convinced him to exhibit his creations in 2018 during the “Metamorphoses” show. The exhibition’s success allowed Raf Reyes to join the prestigious Royal College of Art in London in 2019.

“Raf Reyes’ works are comparable to totems, between the religious and the profane. They can encompass the functioning of the modern individual being in his search for identity and ritualize and mythologize the triumph of a current culture, redundant and excessive. He places himself as a master storyteller; his works tell stories that merge his reflection on art, his overflowing imagination, and the essence of ancient masterpieces that he likes to divert”, adds Alexis de Bernede, The Darmo Gallery co-founder.

The Darmo Gallery was launched in 2018 by Alexis de Bernede and Marius Jacob-Gismondi, two young French people of 24 years old and, respectively, 25 years old. Darmo promotes a deliberately limited number of contemporary artists – often close to their generation – that touch them and for which they have at heart to make their talent emerge.

The two co-founders want to advise and support contemporary artists and highlight little-known periods or techniques of the modern masters by offering tailor-made exhibitions in emblematic and often unexpected places both in France and abroad. In addition to their activity as collector-dealers, Alexis and Marius have forged solid partnerships and helped Gucci acquire pieces for the company’s collection; they have also collaborated with the fashion designer Giambattista Valli and have been included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list awarded by the prestigious Forbes magazine.