P·P·O·W is pleased to present Life Looks Like a House For a Few Hours, Erin M. Riley’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. In a new body of meticulously crafted and powerfully vulnerable large-scale weavings, domestic scenes congeal and dissolve amidst family photos, car crashes, iPhone selfies, and newspaper clippings. Collaging moments from her past and present, Riley intersperses images of herself with memories of her childhood home before it was lost in a storm of separation, alleged affairs, and foreclosure. Throughout these works, Riley investigates the forces that shaped her life and the splintering of personal identity, dissecting each layer to reveal the secrets within.
Riley’s innovative approach to fiber obscures the binary opposition between fine art and craft, shifting the discourse around the medium by merging complex, often sensitive, subject matter from the digital and physical realms. Using hand-dyed wool and cotton yarns sourced from shuttered textile mills, Riley executes her hand-woven tapestries using a thoroughly nuanced and personalized color palette. With this technique, the Brooklyn-based weaver carefully renders the pixelated effect of screenshots and Photo Booth selfies interlaced with moments extracted from old family photographs or culled from memory.
In Somebody Cares, 2025, the artist’s lingerie-clad body reclines across an asphalt highway while a totaled car, discarded beer bottle, and illuminated window emblazoned with the letters “S.O.S.” suggest preceding, or impending, disaster. Another work, You Broke, 2025, integrates a text overlay from a scene in Sex and the City, in which Carrie’s boyfriend, Aidan, exclaims “you broke my heart!” referring to an affair that leads her back to an old relationship. Through these montaged environments, Riley examines the parallels between her childhood and the illicit relationships she developed in adulthood, writing, “As a kid who was passed back and forth amidst child support battles, it always felt like I was torn between alliances, much like the feeling of following the heart in matters that have ethical grey areas.” Learning to fragment herself when moving through spaces so as not to reveal too much, Riley’s works demonstrate the turmoil that ensues when allegiances are divided.
Forest, 2025, the largest work in the exhibition, features the artist’s body digitally repeated, sequenced, and then hand-woven at a monumental scale. An image of the desolate forest behind Riley’s parents’ house hovers in the composition as a reminder of her origins, while a length of birthday streamers winds across a banister in the foreground. Created as the artist approaches her 40th birthday, the works encapsulate a retrospective view of her life thus far. Hundreds of feet of hand-woven birthday streamers form a throughline for the entire exhibition, extending her tapestries into the three-dimensional space of the gallery while paying homage to the trials she has overcome and her survival.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Riley will be joined in conversation by Alina Perez on Saturday, October 4 at 4pm. The artists will discuss the subject matter explored in Riley's exhibition and the broader themes shared across both of their practices. More information about this event is forthcoming.
