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Born in 1985, Cape Cod, MA
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
Erin M. Riley’s meticulously crafted, large-scale tapestries depict intimate, erotic, and psychologically raw imagery that reflects upon relationships, memories, fantasies, sexual violence, and trauma. Collaging personal photographs, images sourced from the internet, newspaper clippings, and other ephemera to create her compositions, the Brooklyn-based weaver exposes the range of women’s lived experiences and how trauma weighs on the search for self-identity. In her review of Riley’s most recent solo exhibition, The Consensual Reality of Healing Fantasies at P·P·O·W, Roberta Smith of the New York Times wrote, “Her richly variegated colors and complex, arresting scenes take full advantage of tapestry’s stitch-by-stitch autonomy.” Riley received her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and an MFA from the Tyler School of Art.
Her work has been included in solo and group exhibitions at P.P.O.W., New York; cadet capela, Paris; Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden; The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs; Gana Art Gallery, Seoul; among others. Riley is the recipient of a United States Artists Fellowship Grant, 2021 and an American Academy of Arts & Letters Art Purchase Prize, 2021 and has completed residencies at MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire and the Museum of Art and Design, New York. Her work is currently featured in 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, manifesto of fragility and Kingdom of the Ill at Museion, Bolzano, Italy. Her work was recently on view at the 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art.
Biography by P.P.O.W. Gallery
Ryan Travis Christian, Namio Harukawa, Erin M. Riley, Christian Rex van Minnen
September 26 — October 31, 2020
54 rue Chapon, 75003 Paris
Monica Kim Garza, James Jarvis, Rhys Lee, Brandon Lipchik, Erin M. Riley, Christian Rex van Minnen
June 21 — 29, 2019
Montpellier
Monica Kim Garza, Erin M. Riley, Theo Triantafyllidis, Christian Rex van Minnen
December 4 — 18, 2018
Rue de Picardie, Paris, FR
Curriculum vitae