Artist and curator Pre Reid imagines art as a polychromatic paradise. She’s intrigued by the simplicity of visual art’s founding principles: shape, line, and, of course, color. A 23-yearold senior fine arts major at Florida A& M University, her first installation of the semester was of unique arrangement of road signs that stood like a totem pole on campus.
Each sign was affiliated with a hot-button societal topic that associated each one with a call to action.
Reid likes art that creates a dialogue between the piece and the viewer, and she is drawn to aesthetics, which is what piqued her interest in chromotherapy, or color therapy. According to Reid, research on color theory is endless, including the use of multicolored lights that heal bodily ailments, saunas, and chromotherapy rooms. She’s fascinated by the subconscious impulses surrounding color that infiltrate our daily lives, from choosing what to wear in the morning to how you paint your walls. She sees chromotherapy as a way of healing people through art and is diving headfirst into the variegated avenues the subject presents.
“I draw inspiration from the fact that I see pain in the world and I see color as venue that can be used to give some type of healing emotionally, spiritually, and physically,” says Reid. “Art should be easy for people to relate to and you don’t want a person to feel left out about something that’s so important, especially if I want to help people through art. It’s supposed to be for everyone and I feel that it is.”Watching paint colors mix in her kindergarten classroom, Reid was enthralled with the swirling shades and hues. She distinctly remembers her teacher painting a zebra, in awe of the seemingly magical trick to make gray by blending black and white paints. Growing up in her Jacksonville home, she was surrounded by her aunt’s high quality, intricate sculptures and figurines. Reid later learned that art was seemingly in her genetics when her mother revealed she used to draw. “There’s a fine line between being an artist and a curator,” explains Reid. “I consider myself an artist but not in the conventional sense in having something tangible for other people, though I want to get back to that eventually. When I’m thinking, I break things apart and put them back together so I prefer working with my hands which is the easiest way for me to be able to do that.” She takes her time when creating work, but struggles to eliminate her inner critique’s hold on her process and is hard on herself when it comes to evaluating her pieces. She strives for her messages within art to be accessible while balancing the more abstract subject matter she is prone to explore. Reid values conversations, and as a member of local artist collective, Alien Astronauts, takes great stock in the synergy that occurs in bouncing ideas off of fellow artists.
“I think conversations are important because it inspires me to shape something in a way that’s understandable since I love conceptual things,” says Reid. “There’s something therapeutic about working and drawing and as an artist you have to let people in. That’s what lets people relate to you and makes them want to know more about your work, and I think that’s what makes the work stronger.”
Reid has volunteered at the TCC Riley Museum Archive and interned at the Foster-Tanner Fine Arts Gallery under the guidance of Professor Aja Roache.
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