Artist Name: Anna Riley
Residency Dates: February-April 2019
Born: 1992
Lives & Works: Brooklyn, NY
Artist URL: https://annariley.org/
Education: BFA RISD
Bio / Statement:
Anna Riley’s research-based studio practice is concerned with material chemistry, new materialism, and the ethical questions of the built and natural environment. Guided by her interest in the seemingly ‘inert’ world and an appreciation for the types of labor that lie behind the built environment, she creates work to be in dialogue with contemporary debates about recycling, land use, artistic labor, craft histories, ecofeminism, and performance.
Her 2018 solo exhibition The Softening of Stone” at the Museum of Arts and Design featured sculpture, drawing, and photography exploring pervasive and anthropocentric substances: the beer bottle and limestone. Her upcoming 2019 exhibition “Into the Same Someplace” will feature artworks examining the codex and the screen, and will include a series of public workshops themed toward technology and attention in collaboration with writer and educator Leonard Nalencz.
Riley’s artworks have been included in group exhibitions at the Corning Museum of Glass, A.I.R. Gallery, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, BRIC Arts Media Gallery, the Museum of American Glass, Agnes Varis Art Center, Dieu Donné Papermill Gallery, Art House Gallery, and Wave Pool Gallery.
Often dependent on experimentation, Riley’s work has been enabled by residencies and fellowships at the Museum of Arts and Design, Dieu Donné Papermill, the Milcom Memorial Reading Room and Attention Library at the Mana Contemporary (NJ), the University of Texas-Arlington, the Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, the Rakow Library at the Corning Museum of Glass, Urban Glass, the Creative Glass Center of America at WheatonArts, Wave Pool Gallery, and the Thicket (GA).
Support: Dirt & Debt, RU’s first thematic residency program is made possible with support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
