Enrico Riley

The work of Vermont-based artist (and visual art professor at Dartmouth College) Enrico Riley seems to vibrate with energetic color and line. In these abstract, almost childlike drawings and paintings of figures and faces, what appears to be spontaneous is actually part of a process of slow and deliberate observation. “I am trying to work with the attitude that many sources and types of subject matter can influence me as I work and that this information can be deployed in a nonlinear fashion,” Riley has said of his works. “There are no set rules about color, composition, style or subject matter. Through the process of making, the works are allowed to find what they need to exist.” Previously, the artist has created abstract works based on musical scores, where color and form stand in for rhythm and tone, as well as figureless monochromatic compositions in white.