Dead Rural - Rebecca Riess

1st April to 30th April

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Opening reception Saturday 1st April, 3-7pm

 

Exhibition open Sundays (except Easter Sunday) 1.30 - 4.30pm

and weekdays by appointment.

 

Debris falls behind the making and the material. What was once a train journey morphed into a painting and now it’s 3 dimensional/sculptural…

Transient timelines twist on the worst public transport at the fringe of industry.  Holes in the road, sewage in my river, agricultural runoff.  

Overproduced and underdeveloped - soil too wet, soil too dry.  

Dipsticks are infectants, specimens and animal life.  The muntjac are becoming a problem.  

Dogworld and those plastic bags, dirty dirty dirt, this shits free.  Stick forks in meat, yes easy meat.  

Poison at the weir, 18 dead swans, that greasy pool.  

Overflow, bad lung, residue.  

I am stationary, embedded, I am a full stop.  Smoke.  Live wood, dead wood, burnt wood.

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Making lists is part of Riess’s process; you have just read one.  Although fictional, this new body of work incorporates Riess’s direct experience and interpretation of how her life relates to location, politics and the environment. Her use of materials has psychological weight which she interprets through her own personal narrative.  For this exhibition she has sewn, woven, painted, drawn, pinned, glued, collected and preserved materials which engage with her notion of Dead Rural.

 

Rebecca Riess was born in London in 1972.  She received her BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore MD 1994, and her MFA from Columbia University School of The Arts, NYC 1996. She has exhibited widely, both across the US (including LA, Chicago, NYC) and in Europe.  In 2010 she moved to Suffolk. Her daily practice involves drawing, painting, sculpture and video. The work usually contains fictional spaces which overlap with reality, non-linear timelines, feminist and socio-political concerns and critiques.