A R I T H M O S this beautiful piece of paper Gonzalo Reyes Araos
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ARITHMOS this beautiful piece of paper
Gonzalo Reyes Araos
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ARITHMOS this beautiful piece of paper
In 2012, during an artistic residency in Shanghai, I found myself on the opposite side of the world from my place of origin, Chile. While communicating with my family through video calls, I could see the sunrise on the screen from one side of the planet while simultaneously watching the sunset through my window. I was experiencing a natural phenomenon in a ubiquitous way, mediated by an algorithm that shaped my conscious experience. This feeling of vertigo intensified my curiosity about how we perceive and relate to nature in the digital age. This experience led me to understand digitality as an immaterial architecture capable of constructing spaces of human interaction that alter the barriers of time and space that condition our physical nature. From this perspective, the algorithm reveals itself as a formula that configures an alternative reality to that perceived through the senses, activating processes of expansion of the human mind and body. Considering that humanity is part of the natural ecosystem, and that nature evolves within a medium governed by intrinsic logic, everything human beings invent, create, or discover contains part of that same order. Mathematics emerged as a way to decipher this logic. Computation, as an extension of this branch of thought, presents itself as a language that prolongs and externalizes the logic of nature. Therefore, what we call natural and what we call artificial are revealed to share the same invisible formula.
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Under these premises, I have developed a transdisciplinary practice in which the grammar of digital media functions as metaphor and symbol, becoming the object of my research into the relationships between technology, perception, and human communication. My work navigates between manual craftsmanship and digitality. I produce paintings on paper that create analogies between physical material and binary code. I work primarily with RGB colors—red, green, and blue—the basic components of pixels on digital screens that shape our contemporary perception of reality. In dialogue with Surrealist automatic writing practices, I have developed a method of conceptual poetry generated through the predictive text suggestions of my mobile phone. From one of these poems comes the subtitle of this catalogue: this beautiful piece of paper, a phrase that captures the tension between the material and the digitally mediated. My light installations, in turn, combine natural and digital elements, creating intimate atmospheres where spiritual experience and technological mediation converge. Arithmos: this beautiful piece of paper brings together a series of works focused on paper-based practice, primarily paintings inspired by the image-generation methods of digital screens. I explore RGB colorimetric systems, the CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) parameters of early personal computers, and the character-construction logic of the Dot Matrix system. This series questions how we perceive the world, proposing that everything we conceive is a form of pareidolia: the tendency to find meaningful patterns where only fragmentary information exists. In each of these series, paper becomes the place where algorithmic precision and the “glitch” of manual process converge, where digital light becomes physical pigment. This process of manual transduction has led me to understand that binary code is no longer merely a technical protocol but has become the invisible architecture of our perception of the world, mediated by light.
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Gonzalo Reyes Araos
Nocturnal 2023 Acrylic on paper, mounted on aluminium composite sheet 41.7 x 32.5 cm Page 4: Nocturnal (detail)
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RGB Paintings
RGB Paintings is a series of works on paper inspired by contemporary means of communication: screens, digital systems, and the Internet. The process giving rise to these paintings seeks to create analogies with the algorithms that compose images on LCD screens, thereby establishing a parallel between a physical and a digital language. The works are composed of red, green, and blue (RGB) colors—the three components that structure pixels—thus addressing additive color theory (light) through physical pigments. The layout is organized in a raster (grid), where the “pixels” compose the structure of the works. The composition is generated by technical accidents or “glitches” that occur during the process of information transmission. Small bits of paper become unglued from the support, resulting in a random lack of data. This void is then supplanted by the background surface, creating new colors and flecks of information across the monochromatic (or trichromatic) surface.
RGB PAINTING (Sphynx) 2021 Acrylic on paper, mounted on aluminium composite sheet 10
47.9 x 33.7 cm
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Presence (#7a7f86)
Above: Installation views of Strike Presence,
2019
2025, LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, Brussels.
Oil on paper, mounted on
Featuring Presence (#7a7f86) (foreground) and
aluminium composite sheet
a work by Vincent de Roder (background).
140 x 100 cm
Photography credit: Courtesy of LAGE EGAL and Gonzalo Reyes Araos
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Above: Installation view of Strike Presence,
Presence (#aca8ab)
2025, LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, Brussels.
2019
Featuring Presence (#aca8ab) (background)
Oil on paper, mounted on aluminium composite
and works by Vincent de Roder (foreground) .
sheet
Photography credit: Courtesy of LAGE EGAL
140 x 100 cm
and Gonzalo Reyes Araos 14
Page 14-15: Presence (#aca8ab) (detail)
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I, YOU, IT (#c2c2ca)
Above: Installation view featuring the series I,
2019
YOU, IT (#c2c2ca).
Oil on paper, mounted on aluminium composite
Pages 16, 18, 19: Individual views
sheet 78 × 57 cm (each) 19
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Your image 12’560 Km away 2019 Oil on paper, mounted on aluminium composite sheet 22
114 x 150 cm
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NOCTURNO - #004 2022 Acrylic on paper, mounted on aluminium composite sheet 61 x 45 cm 24
Right: Nocturno - #004 (detail)
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CGA Paintings
This series of paintings explores the CGA (Color Graphics Adapter) color profile, one of the first color standards for personal computers in the 1980s. The CGA system, restricted to a simultaneous palette of just four colors, is fundamental to the series. I utilize this historical constraint as a conceptual resource to highlight how technical limitation is the invisible formula that structures digital perception. The manual process—hand-painted and hand-cut paper pasted with millimetric precision—replicates the algorithmic logic of screen-based image generation, allowing for technical accidents or “glitches” that generate new information points within the composition. Screens are now the primary communication systems mediating our social coexistence. By working with the CGA standard and its inherent color limitations, I perform a kind of digital archaeology: excavating the historical layers of these devices that condition our contemporary perception. The CGA aesthetic thus becomes a metaphor for the necessary constraints—mathematical and technical—that govern both our digital realities and the natural world, revealing the shared logic of the algorithm.
CGA_11 [#000,#55ffff] 2025 Acrylic on paper, mounted on aluminium composite sheet 26
34 x 26 cm
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CGA_07 [#000,#fff] 2025 Acrylic on paper, mounted on aluminium composite sheet 34 x 26 cm
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CGA_09 [#000,#ff55ff] 2025 Acrylic on paper, mounted on aluminium composite sheet 34 x 26 cm 30
Page 31-31: CGA_09 [#000,#ff55ff] (detail)
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CGA_10 [#fff,#ff55ff] 2025 Acrylic on paper, mounted on aluminium composite sheet 34 x 26 cm
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CGA_08 [#fff,#fff] RGB PAINTING (Sphynx) 2025
2021
Acrylic on paper, Acrylic mounted on paper, on aluminium mounted on composite aluminium sheet composite sheet 36
34 x 26 cm
47.9 x 33.7 cm
CGA_06 [#fff,#000] 2025 Acrylic on paper, mounted on aluminium composite sheet 34 x 26 cm
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Top Left: CGA_12 [#fff, #55ffff]
Bottom Right: Gallery Director Pierre Granoux of
Top Right: CGA_13 [#000, #000]
LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, during the installation
Bottom Left: CGA_12 [#fff, #000]
of the exhibition Strike Presence, Brussels.
2025, Acrylic on paper, mounted on aluminium 38
composite sheet, 34 × 26 cm (each)
Installation views of Strike Presence, 2025, LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, Brussels Photography credit: Courtesy of LAGE EGAL and Gonzalo Reyes Araos
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Dot Matrix
This series of works simulates a bitmap screen using dot-matrix fonts. Each composition begins with the same enlarged character, handpainted on paper. From this, a systematic protocol of cross-cutting and paper reconstitution generates fractals derived from the original sign. This formal multiplicity suggests the countless possibilities of existence that a single symbol can contain. When observing the work, the colored squares—evoking pixels— seem to form recognizable characters or even words. However, any attempt to read them reveals itself as pareidolia: our brains attempting to impose familiar patterns on ambiguous stimuli, constructing recognizable forms within chaos.
676 instances of 8 (blue) 2025 Acrylic on paper mounted on aluminium composite sheet 40
95 x 68 cm
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676 instances of 8 (green) 2025 Acrylic on paper mounted on aluminium composite sheet 95 x 68 cm Above : 676 instances of 8 (green) (detail)
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Studio view: Gonzalo Reyes Araos 44
at work (Berlin, 2019-2023)
Top: Work in progress for the Presence serie (2019) Bottom: Work in progress for the Mirror Extending serie (2013)
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Gonzalo Reyes Araos
Paper Positions art fair, Galerie Gilla Lörcher, Berlín / Berlin
BIOGRAPHY 1980 Born in Quilpué, Chile
De/cipher, gkg - Gesellschaft für kunst und gestaltung, Bonn De/cipher, Arti et amicitiae, Amsterdam
2000–04 Master of Fine Arts, Escuela de Bellas Artes de Valparaíso, Valparaiso
2022 Natura Ex Machina, Continuous Regeneration, Venice Arsenale, Venice
2013–14 University Diploma, Développeur web de systèmes d’informations et communications, Université de Strasbourg 2017-Today Director of H Residency, Platform of Contemporary Art, Calama, Chile Lives and works between Berlin, Germany and Calama, Chile SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS (2012–PRESENT) 2023 Cielo rojo y verde y azul, Parque Cultural de Valparaíso, Valparaiso Sky is falling asleep on the desk of the time, Galerie Peter Gaugy, Vienna 2022 Nocturnos, Galerie Gilla Lörcher, Berlin Cielo & Bits, KSTN Projektraum, Berlin 2018 RGB Paintings, Galerie Gilla Lörcher, Berlin 2017 Foreign Sky, Asia Contemporary Art Platform NON BERLIN, Berlin 2014 Gape - 02. LIGHTHEART, Plateaux Gallery, Berlin 2012 Matter - Light - Time, Pantocrator Gallery, Shanghai SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS (2012–PRESENT) 2025 Strike Presence, duo show with Vincent de Roder, galerie LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, Brussels **Leer**, Freiraum, Berlin Reclaim Reality, Rosalux Projektraum, Berlin Accrochage, Galerie Gilla Lörcher, Berlin 2024 Betwixt & Between, LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, Berlin BAAM, Monopol, Berlin 3%, NADAN, Berlin Another day at the office, Galerie Office Impart, Berlin
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2023 Weaving Memories, NADAN, Berlin
Transtopia, Chilean Conexión Festival of Arts, Monopol, Berlin In Focus, Galerie Peter Gaugy, Vienna Corresponsal Extranjero, Museo Baburizza, Valparaíso December’s Children (and everybody’s), Galerie LAGE EGAL, Berlin 2021 Naturae, Galerie Peter Gaugy, Vienna SWAB, art fair, LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, Barcelona Chilean Conexión, art festival Berlin, Monopol, Berlin Drawing Room art fair, LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, Madrid 2020 Small Wonders, Galerie Gilla Lörcher, Berlin L’artiste et les commissaires, LAGE EGAL, Berlin Berlin Banlieue, LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects and Auktionshaus Jeschke van Vliet Auctions, Berlin 2019 Behind the screen, KINDL - Zentrum für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin All out "small", Galerie KWADRAT, Berlin Chilean Conexión, GlogauAIR artist residency, Berlin Augmented Dreams, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin Paper Position art fair [flare of frankfurt], LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, Frankfurt 2018 Demi-gros, Safe Gallery, Berlin H0, Saco7 Festival, Sala Chela Lira, Universidad Catolica del Norte, Antofagasta No Place / Like Home, loop - raum für aktuelle kunst, Berlin Wasting Time - Vol. 1 the nature edition, Objekte Unserer Tage, Berlin Experiment, Voodoo55, Berlin 2017 Different Similarities, duo show with Carla Bertone, Pavillon am Milchhof, Berlin Thresholds, duo show with Juan Varela, Meinblau Projektraum, Berlin Social Geometrism, Kunst Am Spreeknie, Berlin Autremer, Centre Socioculturel Pôle Sud, Lausanne 2016 Archimedial, Schöneweide Art Festival, Berlin Renaissance, Lighthaus Berlin, Funkhaus Nalepasetasse, Berlin
2015 Final_draft.mov, Geumcheon Art Space, Seoul Velada remix, art festival, Hamburg Zentralstation, Kunst am Spreeknie, Schöneweide Art Festival, Berlin Postinternet is dead, Fisher Gallery, Galerie Oberlin College of Arts, Ohio
2018 H-Residency, residency in the framework of SACO7 festival, Calama 2015 Residency at SASG (Seoul Art Space Geumcheon), Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture , Seoul
Losito Kunstpreis, Löwen Palais, Berlin
2012 Residency at Pantocrátor Gallery, Shanghai
2014 SWAB art fair, Pantocrator Gallery, Barcelona
COLLECTIONS
1st Shandong Biennale, Mass Art Museum, Jinan
Centro Nacional de Arte Contemporáno, Santiago, Chile
Sunland, Pantocrator Gallery, Shanghai
gkg - Gesellschaft für Kunst und Gestaltung, Bonn, Germany
Paint like you mean it, Interview Room 11, Edinburgh
Shandong Art Museum, Jinan, China
Spark, Kunst am Spreeknie, Schöneweide Art Festival, Berlin
Casa de la Cultura de Limache, Chile
Digital zur Malerei - Dialog der Medien, Karlsruhe
Corporación Cultural de Viña del Mar, Viña del Mar, Chile
Umschalten, Schalterraum gallery, Berlin, Alemania
Private collections in Chile, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdoms, China, South Korea and United States of America
2013 Screen Festival Barcelona, Pantocrator Gallery, Barcelona Zendai Himalayas Center, Pantocrator Gallery, Shanghai Aktuelle selbstportraits, Nachbarschaftsgalerie, Berlin 2012 Amsterdam showcase art fair, Pantocrator Gallery, Amsterdam Prismes, duo show with Kerstin Heller, Kartüche Gallery, Berlin Retro-perspective, Kartüche Gallery, Berlin RESIDENCIES, PRIZES AND FELLOWSHIPS 2025 Fondart / Chilean Arts and Culture Fund Grant, ARITHMOS, exhibition in Brussels Fondart / Chilean Arts and Culture Fund Grant, Cielos Forasteros, catalog of artworks 2024 I remember correctly you are you and the rest is history, residency at Galerie Pluto, Bonn
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND EDITORIAL PROJECTS 2023 "Bitmap Poemarium", Artist Book, Berlin, Germany Susannah Cremer-Bermbach, "De/cipher - Zum semiotischen Wechselspiel zwischen Ver- und Entschlüsselung von Zeichen und Symbolen und ihrer Übersetzung in Information,"Gesellschaft für Kunst und Gestaltung e.V., Bonn, Germany DIAGRAMA Magazine, 6th edition, Finis Terrae University Editions, Santiago, Chile. ISSN 0719-9384 2019 Camila Molina Rivera, "Gonzalo Reyes Araos, RGB Paintings," Revista Esbozo, July 2019. 2018 Gonzalo Reyes Araos, "Constellations in a Foreign Sky," SACO7 Origin and Myth, Antofagasta, Chile, December 2018, pp. 142–145, ISBN 978-956-398-332-6 Peter Ungeheuer, DEMI-GROS, Catalogue, Berlin, Germany
2023 Fondart / Chilean Arts and Culture Fund Grant, Bitmap Poemarium
Alejandra Villasmil, "Gonzalo Reyes Araos | Portafolio", Artishock Magazine, Santiago, Chile, online publication, August
2022 NEUSTARTplus-Stipendium, German Federal Grant, Stiftung Kunstfonds
2017 "Social Geometrism," kunstamspreeknie.org, catalogue, Berlin, Germany, December
Fondart / Chilean Arts and Culture Fund Grant, H-Residency 2021 Recherchestipendium, Berlin Senat Research Fellowship
2015 "Losito Kressmann-Zschach Foundation," Losito Kunstpreis 2015, Berlin, Germany. ISBN 3-937155-15-5
Studio grant BBK, Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin
Mareike Lemme and Marlene Lerch, Schöneweide Kreativ, Berlin, Germany
2020 Acquisition of Artworks, Centro Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago
2014 KASK – Kunst am Spreeknie, catalogue, Schock Verlag & Novilla, Berlin, Germany
Fondart / Chilean Arts and Culture Fund Grant, H-Residency
"Paint Like You Mean It", Mirja Koponen and Scott McCracken, Interviewroom 11, Edinburgh, Scotland. ISBN 978-1-32-001242-3
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Imprint
ARITHMOS - this beautiful piece of paper Gonzalo Reyes Araos Edition, Design and Texts: Studio Gonzalo Reyes Araos Image Credits All images © Gonzalo Reyes Araos, unless otherwise noted. Front Cover: CGA_07 [#000,#fff] (detail) Verso of the Title Page and Inside Back Cover: Your image 12’560 Km away (detail) Page 1: view of Your image 12’560 Km away Exceptions: Pages 11, 12, 37: Courtesy of LAGE EGAL and Gonzalo Reyes Araos. Pages 47, 48: Studio Blue Barbosa.
Acknowledgments This publication was printed in the framework of the duo exhibition Strike Presence, with the artist Vincent de Roder, hosted by LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects, Brussels, Belgium 2025. Financing The project ARITHMOS - this beautiful piece of paper. Exposición en galería LAGE EGAL, Bruselas, Bélgica, was financed by the Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Cultural y las Artes (FONDART), Línea de Circulación nacional e internacional, Convocatoria 2025. Thanks to: Pierre Granoux, Dominique Granoux, Irène Tetaz, Dominique Thelen, Vincent de Roder and Cristina Olguin. Publication Details First Edition: November 2025 Printer: Onlineprinters Europa Print Run: 100 copies Printed in: Brussels, Belgium © 2025 Gonzalo Reyes Araos, All rights reserved Studio Gonzalo Reyes Araos www.gonzalo-ra.net 48
studio@gonzalo-ra.net
Supported by
In collaboration with
PROYECTO FINANCIADO POR EL FONDO NACIONAL DE DESARROLLO CULTURAL Y DE LAS ARTES (FONDART), CONVOCATORIA 2025, REGIÓN DE ANTOFAGASTA.
LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects
H RESIDENCY
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Gonzalo Reyes Araos at the studio Photography credit: Studio Blue Barbosa, 2024
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Supported by
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In collaboration with
PROYECTO FINANCIADO POR EL FONDO NACIONAL DE DESARROLLO CULTURAL Y DE LAS ARTES (FONDART), CONVOCATORIA 2025, REGIÓN DE ANTOFAGASTA.
LAGE EGAL Curatorial Projects
H RESIDENCY