REY PARLÁ
Artist · Filmmaker · Photographer · Editor · Writer · Director
Born 1971, Miami, Florida
Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York
reyparla.com

Education

• B.A., English Literature, Florida International University, 2007
• B.A., Interdisciplinary Studies, Florida International University, 2019
• Certificate in Film Studies, Florida International University
• 1-Year Directing Program Lab, The Barrow Group, New York City
• Independent Feature Project (IFP Involve NY) – Scholarship Recipient
• Independent Study, Alliance for Media Arts, Miami Beach, FL (1993–1998)
• Lee Strasberg Seminar, Miami Dade College
• Miami Coral Park Senior High School

Additional Training

• Robert McKee’s Story, Genre, and Storynomics
• Guy Magar’s Action Cut for Film/TV Directors
• Kodak Emerging Filmmakers Program
• Valencia College Acting & Theater Program
• Prometeo Theater Program, Miami Dade College

Biography

Rey Parlá is a Cuban American multidisciplinary artist best known for his distinctive “Scratch-Graph” pictures—originating from hand-painted Super 8 films.

Deeply informed by analog processes, distressed surfaces, and improvised editing, his artistic language fuses cinematic techniques with photographic experimentation. Parlá has exhibited internationally in New York, Tokyo, Paris, L.A., Beijing, and Miami.

His early abstract films were screened alongside icons like Stan Brakhage and José Antonio Sistiaga at The Avant-Garde Returns, curated by Bruce Posner (Harvard Film Archive) at the 12th Miami International Film Festival. He has collaborated extensively with his brother, painter José Parlá, serving as co-director, editor, writer/filmmaker and photographer on a wide range of books, films, and exhibitions.

His practice is rooted in diasporic memory, visual music, and the layered aesthetics of lived experience.

Solo Exhibitions

• EXTREMES, Benrubi Gallery, New York, 2020
• Multiplicities, Benrubi Gallery, New York, 2018
• Intentions, Clear Edition & Gallery, Tokyo, 2017
• Borderless, Happy Lucky No.1 Gallery, Brooklyn, 2016

Selected Group Exhibitions and Screenings

• Material: Espíritu Siboney, Maysles Documentary Center, Harlem, 2023
• Between Humankind & Nature, Vision Art Platform, Istanbul, Turkey. Curated by İpek Yeğinsü
• Tribe Tales & The Mystic Writing Pad, Baxter St at CCNY, 2023
• To Jonas With Love, Ki Smith Gallery, NYC, 2020
• Paris Photo, Benrubi Gallery, Paris, 2017
• ONE: Union of the Senses, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2017
• The Creative Process in Art & Filmmaking, White Box Lab, NYC, 2016
• Belong to This Non-Place Micro Vista. Wider than a Postcard. Breeze Block Gallery, Portland, OR. Curated by Sven Davis. 2013
• The Wrinkles of the City: Havana, Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, 2012
• Parlá Frères: U.T.O.P.I.A., Colette, Paris, 2012
• Sights Unseen, Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery, 2011
• Viral Underground, Collaborative experimental film with Michael Betancourt, 2011
• The New Grand Tour, Hong Kong, Beijing, NYC, 2007–2010
• It Ain’t Fair, OHWOW Gallery, Miami, 2010
• Scratch | Graphs, Frost Art Museum, FIU, 2009
• Moving Images, Curated by Michael Betancourt, Sioux City Art Center, IA, 2008
• Pictography, The Marlin Hotel, Miami Beach, 2005
• Death & Taxes, The Dorsch Gallery, Miami, 2004
• IV Festival Internacional de Arte Sonoro, MUCA-ROMA, Mexico, 2002
• The Anti-Film Festival, Colony Theater, Miami Beach, 1997
• Rumba Abstracta, Alliance Cinema/Cinema Vortex, Miami Beach, 1996–1997
• South Florida Art Center, Black Box Exhibition, 1995
• Central Florida Film & Video Festival. 1995
• Louis Wolfson II Media History Center Festival, Colony Theater, Miami Beach, FL. 1995
• Sporadic Germination, 12th Miami Int’l Film Festival, 1994
• Cinema Vortex, Alliance for Media Arts, Miami Beach, 1994–1998
• The No Show, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Coral Gables, 1997

Film and Video Works

• ONE: Union of the Senses (2017) – Co-Creator, Producer, Editor
• Wrinkles of the City: Havana (2012) – Co-Director of Photography, Producer
• The New Grand Tour (2007–2010) – Co-Director, Editor, Producer
• Diablo (1998, 16mm) – Co-Writer, Co-Director (Milano Int’l Film Festival)
• Controlled Hallucination (2018)
• Lux in Tenebris (2016)
• Rumba Abstracta (1996–97, 35mm hand-painted)
• Sporadic Germination (1994)
• The Revolution of Super 8 Universe: A Self-Portrait (1995)
• An Experimental Introduction to a Segmented Reality (1993)
• The Painted Paradise (2007)
• Erasing Memory (2004, with Natasha Tsakos)
• Empujando un Botón (2002, with Vanessa Gocksch)

Publications, Monographs, and Editorial Contributions to All
Monographs/Catalogues & Books for José Parlá Studio

(Roles: Editor, Essayist, Photographer, Artistic Director, Proofreader)

• Phosphene (2023)
• Ciclos: Blooms of Mold (2022)
• Polarities (2022)
• It’s Yours (2020)
• Segmented Realities (2014)
• Roots (2019)
• In Medias Res (2014)
• Walls, Diaries, and Paintings (2011)
• Broken Language (2013)
• Reading Through Seeing (2009)
• Character Gestures (2011)
• Adaptation/Translation (2008)
• Cityscapes (2004) 
• Memory Documents (2007)
• The New Grand Tour – Multiple editorial, photographic, and essay contributions (2007-2010)

Monographs by Rey Parlá

• Scratch~Graphs (2015)
• Borderless (2016)

Photography Features

• Vogue Mexico
• Forbes
• Brooklyn Rail
• NY Daily News
• Champ Magazine
• Cultured Magazine
• Whitewall
• The Fader
• Complex
• Flavorpill
• Frank151
• YoungArts
• Daily Mail UK
• Highsnobiety
• Miami Herald
• Freshness Mag
• Standard Hotels
• Arrested Motion
• Travel + Leisure
• The Creators Project / VICE
• Dazed Digital
• Village Voice
• Hypebeast
• Blouin Artinfo
• Slamxhype
• 12oz Prophet
• Mass Appeal

Performance Art/ Intermedia Work

PROBE: Informative Art Project (2004) – Audio-visual performance in collaboration with Natasha Tsakos; premiered at Miami Beach Cinematheque

Lectures and Speaking Engagements

• INSPIRE Conference, SCAD Museum of Art
• ASJA Writers Conference, NYC
• Guest Lecturer, Barrow Group Performance Lab
• Savannah College of Art & Design – Time-Based Media & Photography

Theater Direction, Dramaturgy & New Play Development

• The Barrow Group – Directors’ Lab Program & Student Playwriting Festival (2023–2024)
• The Brotherhood by Jason Leal – Director and dramaturg for staged reading (2023–2024)
• The Tarantino Variation by Seth Kramer – Director, dramaturg, and producer (2024)

Professional Affiliations & Advisory Roles

• Member, Art Advisory Committee, Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York (2024–Present)
• Member, Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), since 1998
• Member, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
• Member, Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS), U.K.

Honors & Awards

• Latino Writers Lab™ Fellow – NALIP (2004)
• Scholarship Recipient – Independent Feature Project (IFP NY, 2001)
• Outstanding Student Award – Valencia College (1992)
• Teacher Recognition Award – Adults Mankind Organization, Miami-Dade County

Collaborations and Initiatives

• Co-Founder & Studio Director, Parlá Studios
• Founder, Miami Underground Film & Video Festival (1999–2001)
• Theater: Dental Floss Theater, Prometeo, Valencia College
• Collaborators include: José Parlá, Natasha Tsakos, Vanessa Gocksch, MERCE (Maria Chavez & Shelley Burgon), Michael Betancourt
• SONIC ARCHITEXTURES. White Slab Palace, NYC. Sound & image performance: (MERCE) Maria Chavez, Shelley Burgon & Rey Parlá. 

Collections

• Nancy A. Nasher & David J. Haemisegger Collection
• Various private and institutional collections in NYC, Miami, Tokyo, and Paris