ReactJS and REST API vs. PHP?

Sorry for stupid questions, but I feel like I need some human assistance. Context: I'm a designer turned web dev who learned HTML,CSS,PHP for creating Wordpress-backed business pages. Self-learned, one year of experience. I just started with React JS and I like it, but there's a lot of concepts that still confuse me and I feel quite clumsy with it. I need to create a webpage ASAP, not anything overly complicated, but it requires publication of articles and I wanted to use Wordpress for that. The page is for a business that needs to qucikly find clients and it's going to be a quite simple page with articles showing their portfolio. Let's say I'm doing it pro-bono as I'm still learning. Problem: I need to make simple business page with Wordpress articles ASAP for portfolio purposes. I wanted to use React JS, because I'm in the process of learning it, but REST API seems quite scary and I'm afraid I'm gonna get bogged down. I'm considering using PHP in a way that React components work and echo elements - for now just check whether the user is on desktop or mobile as the design slightly varies depending on the screen. Then, I'd migrate that PHP-monster into React in the future, hence the idea of mimicking React components with PHP. Is it a viable solution or is it better to do hard burn for mastering REST API and forcing myself into coding everything in React https://mobdro.bio/ ? Sorry if it's a stupid question, but I talked to Chat GPT about it and while it gave answers it doesn't really pass judgement about optimal solutions.