Tell us a little about yourself.
My name is Christopher Reyes, and I'm 36 years old, residing in Leslieville. I share my one-bedroom condo with my two Shih Tzu fur babies, KanJi (16 years old) and YuNa (2 years old). I was born in the Philippines and immigrated to Canada at the age of 4, along with my two siblings and parents. I was too young to remember much about the first couple of weeks in Canada, but from what I was told, after a few weeks here and seeing Canadians for the first time, I had asked my mom if my nose was going to grow pointy like theirs. I guess we start comparing ourselves to other people at a young age. We begin to measure our worth. We realize that we are different from others and that we are the foreigners in this new, scary world with new experiences and a brand-new list of insecurities to overcome.
© Christopher Reyes, courtesy of the artist
Fast forward to the summer break and come September, I was starting kindergarten at a local Catholic school at the end of the street where we lived. I took the school bus to get there with a ton of English-speaking kids, who seemed like they all knew each other already. I sat awkwardly alone in the classic 2-seater seat you'd find in a school bus. At this point, I started to notice the details in what they were wearing, thinking how everyone looked like every article they wore was fresh from the package. White T-shirts with contrasting logos gleamed, and sneakers squeaked with the new sneakers squeak. Then, looking down at my fashion statement: shoes were hand-me-downs inherited from a cousin, the jeans were from a garage sale down the street that my parents were way too excited to show me they had purchased for $1, and the shirt was my favourite shirt I'd had for years, hence why I wore it.
But as I sat there alone, I felt my whole self shrinking smaller and smaller. The laughing, English-speaking children and their friends grew bigger and bigger, and the longer I looked, the more I felt they were now laughing at me. Why? I asked myself. I thought hard, and not a couple of seconds had passed before I had an answer. I blamed myself. I decided right there in my self-made scorching tunnel of embarrassment, shame, anxiety, and dread that I now despised my sneakers because they weren’t new, hated my jeans because the cut didn’t look like the cut the other kids were wearing, and now despised this shirt because they were all laughing at me in it. I sat there, just so scared of how different I felt from them, now intimidated by everyone and the laughter. Even the only other Asian kid had friends.
That morning trauma routine played every day in my head, seemingly at a lower frequency as the days progressed. Not long into kindergarten, I realized that there was a space and time and day of the week when I always felt the happiest. It made me feel safe, heard, and seen. In those moments, I felt whole. It also made me realize that what I was looking for was to belong and be included. That’s what art class and any other subject that gave us the opportunity to “create” and “make” provided me. I was able to authentically be myself. Art became my language. It helped me navigate.
I can describe my art as being bold, minimalistic surrealism with influences from the 1950 MCM, post-modern, brutalist, movement with possibly Scandinavian and/or Japanese design undertone.
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