"Measures" work by Audrey Riley, will be on exhibit at the
Eyedart studio gallery, 213 South Main Street, Goshen, Indiana
August 13 – September 27, 2008.
Enter the online gallery
(Gallery posted July 2008)
Join us at the gallery for the artist’s reception Friday, August 15, 2008, 5 – 9 p.m.,
and a talk by the artist, Friday, September 5, at 7:30 p.m.
See pictures from opening night
(Gallery posted October 2008)
Artist statement
Time, and my relationship with it, informs my art. When ready-made yardsticks are my ground the themes of distance and measurement come into play. When I use reclaimed press sheets from a paint swatch printer as my base, themes of ordering and counting and naming become involved. Although I am using both grounds to portray now-ness, they reach into art history to Duchamp’s use of the ready-made.
As an object that is utilized often but rarely contemplated, the yardstick is rich with inherent and latent meaning. Purchased from a US hardware store chain, each yardstick bears its name, Do It Best. This stealthy call to performance and judgment proves fortuitous to my themes. I further employ the printed matter as a grid and texture.
The bands of paint on the press sheets stand for the passage of time. These sheets, full of this season’s colors, allow me to reserve a piece of popular culture as my canvas. I am inspired by being presented a color palette and creating inside parameters. A fascinating anonymous collaboration has begun as the pressmen, knowing I favor sheets that show their marks, create swirls in the wet paint as they perform their job tagging flaws and washing up the press.
A spinning top is my visual metaphor for a person on life’s path. These toy tops, like lives, are born with a chaotic burst of energy and make a winding way to their imminent cessation. The varying paths they take are much like our own; straight at a goal, wandering aimlessly, finding a groove and gaining momentum, or running around in circles. The actions of my subject matter leave the landscape and everything in it changed. Events are written to memory and ideas find form in language, words littered.
Language and wordplay are essential to my work. When letters form words they invite immediate consideration. The same holds true when letters do not form words, communicating through the rhythm of sounds spoken to oneself. Letters are generically styled, evoking a collective conversation or a mind numbing, background chatter.
My interest in the application of typography and graphics to an existing surface comes from the make-ready process involved in commercial offset lithography with which I became familiar in my advertising career. In this career I also gained a firm grasp on time management and was told on more than a few occasions that I was a tornado.
Audrey Riley
Artist profile
Audrey Riley is an artist living in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
She is currently earning her Masters Degree in Studio Art at the University of Saint Francis, Fort Wayne, Indiana. She earned her BA at Saint Francis College with a double major in Fine Art and Commercial Art and a minor in Business Administration.
“Philosophers and scientists influence me as do artists, architects, designers, writers, musicians, and processes where collage, assemblage, layering, typography, or wordplay are involved. In many cases the illusion of movement is implied, be it visual, lyrical, scientific or through the written word.”
Learn more on the artist’s Web site, rileyco.com.