ARTIST STATEMENT
At the heart of my work is an ongoing exploration of the deceptive nature of pictorial experience. Rooted in painting’s fundamentals, my practice navigates the tension between the tangible materiality of paint and the illusions it creates. Through this duality, I make abstract images that hint at the natural world—spaces, atmospheres, geology—while opening into ambiguous realms that resist fixed interpretation.
The passage of time echoes throughout these works, visible in texture and trace. Stretching, sizing, and priming the canvas lay down a foundation of the “past” and set the stage for the present moment of painting, where I respond to the surface, the paint’s properties, and the shifting balance between control and chance. Variations in the surface—from subtle flecks to carved text—guide the painting toward its final state.
Each painting tells the story of its own becoming. Marks, revisions, and adjustments remain visible, integral to the image rather than hidden beneath it. Surface and image are inseparable. The work invites slow, contemplative engagement, where color, form, and texture unfold over time. In balancing history and immediacy, illusion and material, I seek to create a space where viewers can pause, reflect, and experience the painted image as both artifact and event.
BIO
Born 1977 in Wareham, MA.
In 1999 Riley received BFA in Painting from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. In 2004 he received an MFA in Sculpture from the University of Pennsylvania.
His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the Northeast including; Hillyer Gallery in DC, Danese/Corey in New York City, TSA NY in Brooklyn, NY, Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA, Lamont Gallery in Exeter, NH, Arthur Ross Gallery in Philadelphia, PA, The Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, NY, and several others.
He has received grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation, The Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and the Berkshire Taconic Foundation. Riley has been an artist in residence at the Joan Mitchell Center, Yaddo, and the Vermont Studio Center.
Riley currently lives and works in Washington DC and maintains a studio in Colle di Tora, in Italy's Turano Valley.