ARTIST STATEMENT
At the heart of my work is an ongoing exploration of the deceptive nature of pictorial experience. Rooted in the fundamentals of painting, my practice negotiates the tension between the tangible materiality of paint and the illusion it constructs. Through this duality, I create abstract images that suggest connections to the natural world—spaces, atmosphere, geology—while simultaneously opening into ambiguous realms that resist fixed interpretation.
Time—both past and present—is central to my work. My paintings seek to echo the passage of time, their surfaces built in quiet layers that suggest scenes or stories long unfolding through texture and trace. The initial processes of stretching, sizing, and priming the canvas lay down this foundation of the “past”—a constructed ground that sets the stage for the present moment of painting to occur.
In this present moment, I aim to be fully responsive—engaged with the surface, the properties of paint, and the shifting dynamics between control and chance. My process is intuitive and immersive, requiring presence of mind and sensitivity to each decision. The final image is both a record of its own making and an attempt to capture a lived moment through illusion—a reality shaped by the tools and language of abstraction.
Each painting tells the story of its own becoming. The traces of process—marks, revisions, adjustments—are integral to the image, not hidden beneath it. Surface and image are inseparable. The work invites a 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 richness of 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.