(b. 1949 in New York, lives and works in New York)

Riley works almost exclusively in painting and drawing and her motifs are often based on still lifes . An abstractionist who frequently works on paper, Riley's production has been characterized by elegance, etherealness, fluidity and a beguiling reserve. Her palette is often restricted to a scale of grey, from white, near white to black combined with earth shades, although she has explored colors. While she remains an abstract artist, Riley has experimented with figuration, and her newest works are sensitively poised between the abstract and the representational, and are influenced by her passion for the mythology and ancient cultures.

Her work was featured in “Out of Line,” a group show at Slag Gallery in Chelsea in 2010 and exhibited in “Unfreedom” at the Smudajescheck Galerie in Ulm, Germany in 2011. She had a solo show at the Weber Fine Art Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut in June, 2013 and a solo, “Adaptive Traits,” at the Smudajescheck Galerie in September-October, 2013. Her work is in several private and public collections including that of the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection in Little Rock, Arkansas and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.

Carin Riley was born in New York City, she attended the School of Visual Arts, New York, in the 1970s and studied painting. Minimalism and Postminimalism were the prevailing styles at the time and her teachers were Robert Ryman, Robert Mangold, Richard Serra, and Brice Marden among others. Richard Artschwager was also a mentor, who notably and presciently merged art and design, affirming what Riley naturally gravitated toward. After SVA, Riley received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1973.