Erin M. Riley
"While the Brooklyn-based artist Erin M. Riley is best known for hand-woven tapestries that depict sexy selfies of her own tatted-up body, her solo exhibition here offers a condensed meditation on more delicate and melancholic dimensions of her oeuvre."
"The thematics of both rooms chillingly converge in the frisson of misapprehended textures and functions. Riley’s works—part comfort blanket, part burial shroud—combine craft materials and techniques with the horrors and vicissitudes of real life to marvelous (and marvelously macabre) effect." - Natilee Harren
Erin M. Riley
The End, 2018
wool and cotton tapestry
49 x 46 ins.
124.5 x 116.8 cm
"Cujo was hit by a car on Mountain Ash Road, there is blood on the street out front ofour house, he tried to get up afterwards, I didn’t actually see it.
While checking the mail across the street one evening a car piled in deer carcasses backed out of my neighbors driveway, I saw it all lit up by the brakes.
Driving home from picking up Chinese food they fought so much he took the bag of dinner and threw it out of the window, I saw that in slow motion, and I smelled it, there was no escaping hearing it either, the fighting.
For Christmas my mom got my stepdad a vcr to replace the betamax, but it sat in the bathroom closet in a black trash bag, i thought it was a dead body nestled behind the dirty clothes hamper, but I imagined that.
I swam as far out into the ocean as i could until the lifeguards whistled and the adrenaline would catapult me to shore.
Erin M. Riley
11 Stitches Standing Up, 2020
wool, cotton
43 x 48 ins.
109.2 x 121.9 cm
We had a dog named Mingo and he attacked one of my sisters friends at the White Hen.
My grandfather came to visit, he tap-tap-tapped his pipe out on the deck and ash hit me right in the eye, in a picture at the beach he has his hands around my waist.
I caught an assault scene from an R rated movie sitting on the living room floor and slept with my covers covering me and only a crack against the wall open to breath, swearing i could hear another breath, probably under my bed.
If you want to call your parents you can but I don’t see what the big deal is, they fight like this all the time.
I’ll take a number 3 with a diet coke.
Do you need a napkin?
The child is standing in front of screaming adults crying so hard no words will come out. She’s looking up at chaos ears ringing eyes burning throat hot.
Does the child exist?"
– Erin M. Riley
Riley was born in Cape Cod, Massachusetts (1985) and lives and works in Brooklyn. She received her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston, MA (2007) and her MFA from the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA (2009). Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions throughout the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Australia, including New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia, among many others. Riley has lectured extensively throughout the country and has had residencies at The MacDowell Colony, NH and the Museum of Art and Design, NY.
Erin M. Riley
Those Girls, 2018
wool and cotton tapestry
38 x 48 ins.
96.5 x 121.9 cm
Erin M. Riley
Highway Memorial 9, 2018
wool and cotton tapestry
58 x 48 ins.
147.3 x 121.9 cm
Erin M. Riley
Them, 2018
wool, cotton
21 x 21 ins.
53.3 x 53.3 cm
A Reminder of Being There (Installation View), Jonathan Hopson, Houston, TX, September 13 – December 13, 2020. Courtesy of Jonathan Hopson Gallery.
A Reminder of Being There (Installation View), Jonathan Hopson, Houston, TX, September 13 – December 13, 2020. Courtesy of Jonathan Hopson Gallery.
A Reminder of Being There (Installation View), Jonathan Hopson, Houston, TX, September 13 – December 13, 2020. Courtesy of Jonathan Hopson Gallery.
A Reminder of Being There (Installation View), Jonathan Hopson, Houston, TX, September 13 – December 13, 2020. Courtesy of Jonathan Hopson Gallery.
A Reminder of Being There (Installation View), Jonathan Hopson, Houston, TX, September 13 – December 13, 2020. Courtesy of Jonathan Hopson Gallery.
While the Brooklyn-based artist Erin M. Riley is best known for hand-woven tapestries that depict sexy selfies of her own tatted-up body, her solo exhibition here offers a condensed meditation on more delicate and melancholic dimensions of her oeuvre.