Susan E. Riley is a visual artist working across several different mediums ~ Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, Fashion Design and Architecture.
     Born in New York and raised mostly in Greenwich Village, creativity was ingrained from an early age. She vividly remembers the legacy of Abstract Expressionism and the 1960s movement toward Abstract Minimalism and Color Field Painting … from
Robert Motherwell to Hans Hoffman, Mark Rothko, Kenneth Nolan and Ellsworth Kelly ~ these artists would forever shape her design aesthetic.
     Her education at The Fashion Institute of Technology would begin her love affair with simple shapes and designs. Spending her days sketching, designing, draping, making patterns, and working with color and fabric contributed greatly to her first career in the snow ski apparel business.
With the Women’s Liberation Movement in full swing, working for the prestigious Bogner Skiwear Company, Susan became a pioneer in the male-dominated skiwear business and was one of the first women representatives to travel the U.S. independently of a man.
     Then, a second love took hold ~ her love of Architecture. After designing and building her own contemporary cottage in Harbor Springs, Michigan,
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago was her next stop.
Line, shape, scale, proportion and balance all come together as she designed residences, commercial buildings, even boathouses.
     But the call to create her own Fashion Design label, Susan E. Riley Couture, won out, leading to a 25-year career as a Fashion Designer with an atelier on Palm Beach’s prestigious Worth Avenue.
      Although Susan has been painting and creating her entire life, in 2017, her world of Fashion Design, Architecture, and Painting collided. Fascinated by her Couture dress patterns, she started to assemble pattern pieces on canvas.
“ Pattern pieces fit together as do bits of our lives, each important and connected, yet separate “.
Bringing all the elements of her background together, she created the painting series “ Simplicity “, inspired by the Simplicity many of us strive for in an overly technological world and the need to Simplify as we age.
     The Cornell Art Museum in Delray Beach, Florida, took note, and her solo show in The Spotlight Gallery opened as part of a master exhibit: “ Art Couture: the Intersection of Art and Fashion. “

Susan E. Riley
561 / 315 ~ 7828
Sansu@me.com