His nickname is Cheese.
“I was the only white kid on the Little League baseball team when I was 12 years old,” said Jersey City artist Juan Vasquez, who, along with Jersey City resident Orlando Reyes, is having his work displayed at Grove Art and Photo on Christopher Columbus Drive. “Because of that, I got the nickname of ‘Cheese.’ ”
Vasquez has been painting since he was a kid. In addition to painting, Vasquez operates a barbershop in Jersey City.
“When I was a kid, it was a hobby,” said Vasquez about his artistic work.
He got his start doing graffiti on the walls in Jersey City. He believes the particular art form of graffiti, so often looked down upon, helped him to be a better artist.
“Graffiti is definitely an art form,” said Vasquez. “You learn about the use of color and lines. Graffiti also taught me perspective.”
At first, Vasquez worked outside with his graffiti art, but then moved into his studio.
“I did a lot of interior work, but working with spray paint can be a problem,” said Vasquez. “I got tired of spray paint. I started using air brushing.”
Vasquez’s artistic farewell to spray paint is expressed in a large canvas done in acrylic paint entitled “Enough.” The painting shows a young artist crushing a spray paint can with colors exploding from it.
“I still use spray paint sometimes, but it got to be a hazard to my health,” Vasquez explained.
Vasquez acknowledged Picasso as an influence on his work, along with the sometimes twisted work of Jersey City-based painter Ron English. English is best known for recreating dark versions of traditional cultural icons like Marilyn Monroe and Walt Disney characters.
“I always put on the dark colors as a background,” said Vasquez about his approach to painting. “Once the background is in, I then paint in the detail.”
This creates a smooth, finished surface to Vasquez’s painting. The lighter colored details are blended with the background, giving the paintings a unified effect.
One of the best examples of this is a tribute to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The painting, with a dark blue background, features a single, crying eye over a devastated Twin Towers.
If Vasquez’s work is about smoothly unifying all the elements in a picture, the paintings of Orlando Reyes strive to bumpy and textured imagery.
Reyes got his start in graffiti also, but has since moved on to use enamels. The Jersey City resident said enamel paints, generally mixed with thinner, are perfect for his art.
“The viscosity of the paint gives texture to the painting,” Reyes stated. “I’m always looking for a pattern to put in the picture.”
Like Vasquez, Reyes generally starts his pictures with a smooth finished background, generally employing one color.
“After that, I added the thicker paint to create contrast,” Reyes explained.
Reyes said he uses the popular physics notion called the Chaos Theory to explain what he is trying to do.
“The Chaos Theory states that even in what seems to be chaos and confusion, there is a pattern,” Reyes stated. “Look at anything long enough and you will find a pattern.”
One of the sources of inspiration for Reyes is flowers. “Why I do flowers is because they have veins and a pattern that is not immediately apparent,” Reyes said. “I want people to stop and look at flowers.”
Along with his fine art work, Reyes is a prop and art director in the film industry.
“I worked on the Scorsese movie ‘Kundun’ about the Dali Lama,” Reyes said.
The high point of the filming, for Reyes, was when Buddhist monks visited the set. “They came there to create the mandalas which you see in the movie,’ Reyes explained. “It was really something to see.”
Reyes worked on other films such as “Casino” and an independent feature called “Death of Art.”
“That was a break from my painting,” Reyes said. “It gave me time to develop my own style.”
Reyes compares himself to a mad scientist when he is painting. The bright, organic forms that he creates, Reyes calls his mutations.
“I want to create a bridge between people and the environment,” Reyes said, explaining why images of plants and flowers crowd the work on display at Grove.
“This is the first show I’ve had here,” said Mary Parlar, owner of Grove Art and Photo. “Cheese was an underground artist that I heard about,” Parlar said about the exhibition. “And Orlando has been painting for a long time.”
The paintings of Orlando Reyes and Juan Vasquez will be on display for the month of November. Grove Art and Photo is located at 107 Christopher Columbus Dr.