Art is a second career for Reyes who spent 17 years in banking in San Francisco. He began as a self-taught artist, then studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago graduating with a BFA in 1997. He returned to the Bay Area and has lived in Oakland since 1998. His studio is located in the Jingletown neighborhood in Oakland at Ford Street Studios.
His work has been primarily representational and includes oil paintings, drawings, and printmaking. His primary interest has been depicting the human figure which are often depicting a single figure, however In 2014 a visit to MoMA in New York for the Henri Matisse The Cut Outs exhibition made an impact on him and he embarked on creating his own cut outs, subsequently taking his art making in the direction of abstract art in both paper cutouts and oil painting.
In January 2018, the Mexican Museum in San Francisco mounted an exhibition An Artist’s Evolution, a retrospective which has elevated Fernando’s exposure in the SF Bay Area and beyond.
Fernando has an extensive resume of solo and group exhibitions on a regional and national basis. His work has been acquired for the art collections of University of California, Davis, Sutter Cathedral Hills Hospital, Stanford University Medical Center, Alameda County Arts Collection, Amoco Corporation, Ruth Chris Steakhouse, Tom of Finland Foundation (link below), Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, George and Cynthia Miller Wellness Center and numerous private collections.
