Far Away

PRESENTED BY CHARLES JAMES GALLERY

SEPTEMBER 5th – OCTOBER 17th, 2020

Duke Riley (b. 1972, Boston) explores the struggles of marginal communities who exist, perhaps forgotten, within larger encompassing societies, looking at such issues as the tension between individual and collective behavior, and conflict with institutional power. Riley is known for work that combines the seafarer’s craft with nautical history through drawing, printmaking, mosaic, sculpture, performative interventions, and video structured as complex multimedia installations (Creative Time).

Riley is fascinated by maritime history and events around urban waterways. His signature style interweaves historical and contemporary events with elements of fiction and myth to create allegorical histories. His re-imagined narratives comment on a range of issues from the cultural impact of overdevelopment and the environmental destruction of waterfront communities to the contradictions within political ideologies and the role of the artist in society.

Riley has had solo exhibitions at Magnan Metz Gallery, New York City; the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland; the Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY; and the Havana Biennial, among many others. He has received numerous awards and commissions, including a Percent for Art commission, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, and the MTA Arts For Transit commission for the Beach 98th Street Station renovation. Born in Boston, he received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, before moving to New York, settling in Brooklyn, and earning his M.F.A. from Pratt Institute. His work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Pizzuti Collection at the Columbus Museum of Art and the Queens Museum, among others.