Alma Blues, 2019
Alma Blues, an exhibition by Clay Reuter, combines the repetition of school work with surreal dream logic to create a sense of anxiety and disorientation. Drawing, photography, and video gameplay mix to lead viewers through a school stress-dream, the type that often recurs even after one’s time in school. The work in Alma Blues strives to develop literacy (both traditional and emotional) in order to uncover the underlying fears at the root of these nightmares.
Themes of language, academic iconography, and bodily discomfort link the works and return viewers to an adolescent perspective. Printed letters, hand-written lines, and cryptic messages appear in various forms including American Sign Language, braille, Latin, Spanish, and English. The title Alma Blues combines “alma” meaning soul in Spanish with “blues” to reference the negative effect of school’s rigors on the spirit of students. Across language, time, and mode of communication, students must contend with the same uniting stresses presented by school.
Specific school related items serve as both symbol and backdrop for the work in Alma Blues. Scantrons recall the pressure and confines of standardized testing, while marbled-cover composition notebooks trigger the imagination. Ruled paper and school desks mutate to envelop the subjects of drawings, while brown paper bags and half-pint milk cartons establish backgrounds of a cafeteria environment. Though mundane, these items possess visual weight and meaning due to their ubiquity in schools.
The works in Alma Blues use the body to signal physical discomfort. Palms of hands sweat profusely in one series of drawings on Scantrons, while other hands show signs of strain contorting into ASL letters. Faces morph to show the effects of puberty, while others appear trapped inside the wooden veneer of a desk. A drawing of brain activity during REM sleep and the tears of dreams hint at the mysterious processes of the body when out of waking consciousness. These images mark the physical toll that school takes on students during a time of rapid transformation.
Reuter takes inspiration for the style and presentation of Alma Blues from stark digital displays, primitive ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) graphics, and the use of text in drawing by artists Adriana Corral and Ann-Michele Morales. A mix of songs ranging from the pleasantly woozy Daniela Andrade track “Ayayai” to the abrasively grinding “Streaker” by Tobacco contribute to the mood of the work. Listen to the corresponding exhibition playlist on Spotify by searching “Clay Reuter” or “Alma Blues.”