Janis Reyes is a painting student at the UP Diliman College of Fine Arts. Having participated in the New York Academy of Art’s Summer Undergraduate Residency Program last 2023, she has exhibited her work in Manhattan and Manila. Her current work explores the liminal spaces between observable and conceptual polarities, specifically, light and dark. Her paintings show mother of pearls and nacre used as mediums for both light and dark to interact and converse, birthing a plethora of forms and colors. Her artistic pursuit strives to invite viewers to linger momentarily in a trance-like state of introspection, where time and reality are suspended and the ambiguities of existence are illuminated in the shell’s universe of light and shadow.