In 2007, David Frederick Riley and Nealy May Riley met in grad school at Savannah College of Art and Design, and two years later opened a dance studio in Grand Junction, Colorado. The birth of their children focused the rhythm of their lives on creating the art that they had always wanted to produce—painting the wildlife of the mountain west.
Nealy May Riley, Magical Meadow, mixed media, 60 x 48”
An exhibition of their work, Side by Side, will be shown at Altamira Fine Art in Scottsdale, Arizona, from January 16 through 27.
Nealy’s mixed media works on panel often combine acrylic paint and resin with gold leaf and foil that create an energetic glow that changes in different light conditions.
In Magical Meadow, three deer survey their surroundings, one gazing directly at the viewer. On the panel, they exist in an environment of different painterly techniques that suggest the textures, colors and forms of the meadow. In the horizontal bands of color, the deer blend into the meadow’s fall colors.
David Frederick Riley, Sonar, oil on canvas, 48 x 48”
David paints the personalities of people as well as those of animals—from bears to burros. “I don’t approach them differently than people,” he says. “The fun part with animals is trying to capture something about their personality.”
Mr. Charisma is a donkey isolated in a white background to focus the viewer’s eyes on the animal itself. Mr. Charisma is somewhat confrontational on his 5-by-4-foot canvas, but the soft texture of his fur and the glitter of his eyes—always the focal point of his paintings—invite a conversation.
David also combines techniques on his canvas, painting large monochromatic forms with large brushes and then splattering mineral spirits over the surface to abstract the original forms—a process over which he has no control. Then, again with a minimal palette, he goes in for detail in the parts of his subject he wants to emphasize.
David Frederick Riley, Mr. Charisma, oil on canvas, 60 x 48”
Describing his process, he explains, “A lot of my work is about trying to balance opposing forces. Traditional subject matter presented in a modern way; offsetting realistic handling of form with big, loose blocks of values and shapes; balancing realism with abstraction.”
The couple’s adventures into different techniques of representation is underlaid by a love for their environment and its varied denizens. —
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