David Frederick Riley
Eye to eye
Opening February 10 at Altamira Fine Art in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is David Frederick Riley’s newest show, Eye to Eye: Portraits of the West. The one-man show will feature Riley’s newest large-scale works of Western wildlife.
“The work for my next show is focusing even further on that interaction of the subject and the viewer. By using the canvas as a frame of awareness the subject enters into, it sets the tone for the interaction. Maybe the subject is bold and occupies the middle of the space, or is timid and creeps in from the side, but the composition is the foundation to build the emotion from,” the painter says. “I then use variations in the hardness of edges, the saturation of color and the contrast in values to create mood, atmosphere and focal points. I remain transfixed by expression and capturing emotional quality with it. My animals and people are as much about an emotional quality as they are about the representation of physical form. The physical form is the vehicle for the emotional quality. It is the words that speak the feeling.”
Riley, who splits his time between Utah destinations Midway and Park City, leans toward larger works, some measuring 60 inches on their longest side, which contrasts interestingly with the close-up views he paints. “I love painting at a large scale. For me it better captures the epic quality of the West. The size also creates impact and the pause for the interaction,” he says. “The large format helps me to buy the time from the viewer that opens the void for the connection to arise in. I design the positive and negative space in my compositions so the space between is as important as the subject. The emptiness is as informative as the positive. It becomes the breath between the notes to help tell the story.”
Works in the show include the wolf portrait Windows to the Soul, an image of a jackrabbit titled Lightening Jack, and two works featuring buffalo, Snow Kissed and Gaze. He also paints human figures, including in Jicarilla Girl, which is based on a photograph by Edward S. Curtis. “I was originally drawn to [the Curtis photograph] because of the complexity of emotion that I saw in the girl’s face,” Riley says. “I saw kindness tempered with pensiveness; not naïve, but not yet emotionally hardened. For me the contrast of emotions is hard to resist. The game becomes how to use composition, edges and values to communicate the emotion, and at the same time honor the individual by capturing the likeness. The painting was to originally have a dark background for her to emerge from, however I changed this to a white background at the last minute to emphasize the softness of the girl. I felt that this would tilt the scale toward kindness from pensiveness. I am enamored with balancing multiple emotions in one painting and find it to be the hardest and most rewarding part of painting portraits.”
Ron Gurule, fine art consultant for Altamira Fine Art, says Riley’s works are fascinating for collectors because they have a modern edge to them. “His subjects range from wildlife, to figure and landscape, while exacting the same unique look and qualities. He has an amazing ability to capture the personality and authenticity of his subjects while drawing you into the focal point of each piece,” Gurule says. “His work seems to have a life force and personality that seems to happen effortlessly. When watching him paint, you quickly realize that his natural ability, practice and skill set are only a small part of the gift he shares with the viewer. Working with such a limited palette, allows a historical feel and the consistency of one great painting after another will always have you anxious to see what he does next.”