Mary-Rebekah Reyes

For my work, I was inspired by 100 Trinidadian chocolate-covered peanuts called Bobbies which were given to me to rectify a broken relationship. I was insulted by the patronising gesture and ate them all to get sick of them, but it didn’t work. So, I made two artworks to make sense of my pain, betrayal, and heartbreak. For How dare you bribe me with chocolate, I collaborated with a bakery to produce a transparent sugar sculpture made from casts of my own body and inlaid with an anatomical heart to show how humans can be strong yet fragile. I then placed Bobbie wrappers onto moulds to infuse them into three sculptures also cast from my body, called The Three Graces. These two works became a performance where I sledgehammered them into pieces to parallel the destruction of a crafted work to the destruction of a crafted relationship.

The environment that Mary-Rebekah Reyes grew up in is intertwined with her interdisciplinary practice as an artist. She was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago and her work is a fusion of locally available materials and objects. Although the artist works with a variety of mediums (sculpture, painting and performance art), everything Mary-Rebekah produces is connected by a common purpose. She created her work with the intention of gaining self-awareness, and then communicating these insights to others through her work. The artist’s familial and multicultural heritage is the source of her inspiration. As Mary-Rebekah becomes more aware of Art History and the contemporary art discourse, her original sources cross-pollinate with new influences and become fusions, or multi-layered stories, textures, forms and materials.