{"id":10500,"date":"2025-10-17T23:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T23:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/10500\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T23:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T23:27:10","slug":"colorblind-muralist-reveals-how-he-sees-the-world-in-personal-exhibition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/10500\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorblind muralist reveals how he sees the world in personal exhibition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Inside a dark gallery at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, artist Roger Reyes \u2014 who is widely known for painting and restoring murals \u2014<\/a> is hard at work on his new exhibition. <\/p>\n

Though the scaffolding and ladders would suggest otherwise, this latest work isn\u2019t a mural. And it maybe one of his most personal projects yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI See Them Run and Hide, Every Time\u201d opened Saturday at downtown Santa Ana\u2019s monthly ArtWalk. The site-specific installation is meant to challenge the viewers\u2019 perceptions of color, which is informed by Reyes\u2019 color blindness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t always been so forthcoming when talking about this,\u201d the GCAC artist-in-residence said. \u201cWhen it comes to painting, color is part of the process. I have learned how to deal with color.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""I <\/p>\n

\u201cI See Them Run and Hide, Every Time,\u201d a new installation by Roger Reyes at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana.<\/p>\n

(James Carbone)<\/p>\n

Reyes is the co-founder and art director of the Santa Ana Community Artista Coalition, a grassroots organization. He has collaborated with other community leaders, such as LibroMobile\u2019s Sarah Rafael Garcia<\/a>, creating a story map of downtown Santa Ana. And he worked with Mural Colors to restore Emigdio Vazquez\u2019s<\/a> \u201cChicano Gothic\u201d at Santa Ana\u2019s Memorial Park. <\/p>\n

Reyes learned he was colorblind as a teenager after taking the standard Ishihara color plate test. At the time, he was actively pursuing a career as an artist and felt distraught over the diagnosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctor must have seen it in my face,\u201d Reyes recalled. \u201cBut he didn\u2019t flinch or even take a moment. He just said, \u2018You know what? No one sees the world the way you do.\u2019 That was all I needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reframing his color blindness as a skill inspired Reyes to work hard at his craft, developing ways to recognize color on his own terms. When he goes into a project now, he gets the palette down by mixing every color.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mix it and remix it, and in a way it kind of programs my eyes so at least I learn how to see it and know what to look for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While he said can see green, for example, he can\u2019t distinguish its shades. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat comes easy to my friends, seeing hot pink or whatever, I have to work for that,\u201d the Santa Ana resident said. <\/p>\n

Although Reyes was able to work around his color blindness, it wasn\u2019t something he spoke openly about until now. \u201cI See Them Run and Hide, Every Time\u201d is a reference to the fleeting way colors appear to him. <\/p>\n

The exhibition uses scaffolding, acrylic panels, mirrors and industrial piping to immerse the viewer in a fragmented and disoriented environment by tracing colorblindness in three acts.<\/p>\n

\"Roger <\/p>\n

Roger Reyes works on \u201cI See Them Run and Hide, Every Time,\u201d an installation at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana.<\/p>\n

(James Carbone)<\/p>\n

Act I, for example, incorporates a plexiglass panel suspended on a harness and balanced with a cement block.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is tension there and color is a little bit of a mystery,\u201d Reyes explained.<\/p>\n

Rows of purple and pink lights bleed into each other in another area of the installation, their similar gradient making them hard to distinguish at certain angles. With industrial materials, Reyes tells his story using typical tools of his trade, contrasted against the changing colors and reflective mirrors that represent his point of view.<\/p>\n

Reyes said he can\u2019t help but feel a little exposed, creating an entire installation around something even some of his closest friends don\u2019t know about. He hopes viewers feel compelled to consider the individual ways each person sees the world. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is very personal work, this is what is inside of me,\u201d Reyes said of the project that took about two years. \u201cI am ready to have that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reyes is curious to see how the show is received, since it is such a deviation from what he normally does. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my hometown, but I am not known for this at all,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is definitely a privilege, and I didn\u2019t take it lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\""I <\/p>\n

\u201cI See Them Run and Hide, Every Time\u201d by Roger Reyes is on display in Santa Ana.<\/p>\n

(James Carbone)<\/p>\n

\u201cI See Them Run and Hide, Every Time\u201d opened Saturday at Grand Central Art Center, 125 N. Broadway, Santa Ana, and runs through Jan. 1. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inside a dark gallery at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, artist Roger Reyes \u2014 who is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1871,163,165,164,9952,9958,9959,9954,788,9957,9951,338,9956,9955,315,9953,8843,8074],"class_list":["post-10500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-act","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-color","tag-grand-central-art-center","tag-installation","tag-mirror","tag-mural","tag-personal-project","tag-reyes","tag-santa-ana","tag-scaffolding","tag-story-map","tag-time","tag-viewer","tag-way","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}