Artist Spotlight // Gabriela Reis
As an extension of our Women to Watch series, Boshemia introduces Gabriela Reis, a feminist artist, writer, and musician based in Shepherdstown, W.V. Her politically-charged body of work challenges internalized racism and Western standards of beauty while amplifying representation of minority women. She works in ink, acrylics, and coffee. You can find more of Gabi's work in IG @femart_indigo.
From Gabi:
As a visual artist, writer, and musician, I had never anticipated my work would deviate from contemporary art, heavily driven by neo-feminism and situational comedies; then I began to notice the lack of representation in media and the blatant disregard for the unremitting oppression faced by minorities. As a woman of color, I had become desensitized and had excused our Eurocentric world of its implicit racism. I frequently fought to identify with a world that, though hosted numerous people like me, had made only a handful of attempts to acknowledge my existence; one that seemingly had no qualms with catering to a dwindling “majority." So I began producing work in hopes to remove a highly specific aesthetic and societal stigma from my visual art. Though my work ranges from photorealism to impressionism, I have intentionally omitted features to provide viewers with a relatable piece that defies societal norms. We are the blood that courses through our veins and not a preconceived ideal that was perpetuated by Westernization.
Visual Art - Editor's Picks
Selected Poems
Burning Birthday Cards
And here I sit
Fist to my cheek
Chain-smoking to Dylan
Whose promises I hope to keep
Rereading old birthday cards
From those who wished me well
Your actions scream the words
That now send us all to hell
Take a look in the mirror
Closer than you ever looked at me
See how your choice suits you
In this land of the supposed free
Pour a drink for your lovers
Cause you never loved me
If I'd known you any better
Then I would've returned every letter
You ever sent me
So where does this leave us
With half hearted smiles over coffee
You take yours as light as the sea of those you like
And I drink my bitter toast to the world that is yours
I spent every dime you sent me
On things worth more than those missed calls
You talk of adversity
Of how my plight is your lost cause
Pour a drink for the winners
Who take their wine the same as blood
Cause they rose above us losers
Who were left to wallow in the mud
Pour a drink for your sons and daughters
Whose lives we lost in vain
Cause they spoke of revolution
Without a color, a face or a name
*
United
All we heard were the rustle of the leaves
As they were tore from the trees
Hardened by a seemingly irreparable winter
Petrified by the ambiguity of December
Awaiting the callous embrace of tread
For their difference had inadvertently left them dead
With silence deafening those who stayed
Encouraging reluctance with little aid
For those who endured the end of all it made
The branches plead for their resilience
For a triumph that triumphs brilliance
Each awaiting a visionary's call
From one whose cry could stop a wall
That hoped to keep the truths divided
To stir the many who stayed united
Virtuous, insidious and extreme
A spectrum meant to provide the means
To antiquate a toxic world
Which sees the shade before the veins
And is not compelled to make a change
They revolt against the said solution
For it only perpetuated confusion
As if gray dozed between right and wrong
And peace could be restored in song
Those who noticed the draft before the door
Realize these times are what their words were for
The ashes of buds lost in thought
The cherries that split the minds before the lines were drawn
They challenge you to bring a change
To mirror those with views that range
The purest form of altruism is to acknowledge truth
This battle is and for the youth
For the winds and leaves and trees are ready
For our spinning earth to now be steady
Honor the pain that scorns your throat
And freckles the arms of the egoistic vote
The times have changed but no one is changing
And this is why a war is waging
*