The Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College is pleased to present WELL WORN, a solo exhibition featuring works by Katarina Riesing. Her work will be on view from August 25th – October 12th and the Opening Reception [August 25th 5 – 7 p.m.] will feature remarks by the artist at 5:30 p.m.
Riesing’s silk paintings and colored pencil drawings combine the delicate and ephemeral – silk, lace, embroidery and lingerie – with the private unsightly and sometimes unsettling parts of the body – moles, folds of skin, veins and unshaven hairs.
While the figures themselves are cropped in as abstracted torsos, butts, or crotches, these personal moments are rendered in dye and embroidery with careful detail revealing an honest depiction of the hidden topography of the body. The result is often uncomfortable yet familiar – a too close look.
The silk on which she paints is both akin to skin and a symbol of delicacy, sensuality, and luxury. The silk, like skin, is wrapped and folded, taking the form of the person or object it drapes. There is a humor within the contrast of the delicacy of the materials with the images she paints and embroiders into them: a hairy chest, a woman’s crotch. This uncomfortable intersection of imagery with materials reveals an honest and playful approach to the body, its sexuality, its adornments and its imperfections.
Katarina Riesing is originally from Knoxville, TN. She holds a BA from Smith College and an MFA from University of Wisconsin Madison. She has exhibited her paintings and drawings nationally and internationally. Recent exhibitions include her solo show Razor Burn at Asya Geisberg Gallery in NY, as well as group shows at Peep Projects in Philadelphia, Eve Liebe Gallery in London and Art Fairs at New Art Dealers Association (NYC) and Untitled Fair (Miami Beach). She has completed residencies at the Haystack (ME), Saltonstall Foundation (NY), Vermont Studio Center and the Icelandic Textile Center. Riesing lives and works in western NY where she is an Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing at Alfred University.
Questions about the exhibition or requests for images or other information may be sent to Paul Nicholson, Director of the Handwerker Gallery at paulnicholson@ithaca.edu. All events at the Handwerker Gallery are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodation should contact Paul Nicholson (paulnicholson@ithaca.edu). Website: www.ithaca.edu/handwerker-gallery | Hours: Mon, Wed, Fri | 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. | Tues closed | Thurs 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
