Elizabeth Riley
I make installations, wall works, and tabletop cityscapes, using video, inkjet-printed video stills, paint on duralar, and found materials. My drive in my art is in looking through the video media shapes and structures I make, toward forming an embodiment of the present and future. A propelling motive has been in reaching beyond the limited roles provided for women and enforced by the social standards I encountered as a young woman. Another influence has been the raw and nurturing influence of the urban environment that's been my home as an adult, and speaks to me continually about our direction as a society. The use of digital materials places the work in the contemporary timeframe that is defined by our “mixed reality,” living between physical and digital/virtual contexts, and the work addresses this pressing context. Is the digital present the bells and whistles of an unchanged and familiar humanity, or does it define us and the future?