In conversation with Rowan Riley

'‘I am drawn to tactile, textural artwork which offers more than shock and provocation.”

- Rowan Riley

Image: R Riley

Rowan Riley is an embroidery artist from London who graduated from the MA Fine Art course at Central Saint Martins in July 2020. Rowan’s work explores bodies, illness, and how the experience of living in one’s own body is both universal and deeply personal at the same time. Rowan’s practice tries to investigate how interior bodily experience can be communicated via exterior presentations, and the language required to access and understand this, which can be particularly frustrating when health fails or functioning is limited by illness or injury. Rowan uses thread, fabric and mixed media to produce 2D and 3D work which has been exhibited at London’s Science Museum, Elephant West in W12, the APT Gallery and Quality Court in Edinburgh. Most recently her work was included in London Grads Now at the Saatchi Gallery, London.

How did you begin your journey into art?

I trained as a dancer at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire in my early twenties but sustained a career-ending injury which put an end to a life of professional dancing. Until the accident I had only known how to make art by moving my body, and movement was the way I expressed myself. At the end of my degree my research project resulted, quite surprisingly, in an installation piece concerned with how skin condition and states can communicate. The research led to a discussion with a wonderful London-based visual artist Liz Atkin. It was at this time that I came to consider that I might want (or need!) to make art in new ways.

I had no GCSE or A Level art or textiles qualifications so there was quite a knowledge gap, but the critical and contextual studies at Trinity Laban provided a good base of understanding and an exploration of ways to respond to work.

 I was hugely surprised to be given a place on the MA at CSM; I did after all, have no traditional art background and little in the way of a portfolio, but one of the great things about the course is the wide variety of backgrounds we all had. Therefore we were all able to contribute to discussions and crits. It also turned out the imposter syndrome pervaded the whole cohort and we were all shocked to be there!

Legs in case. Image: R Riley

 How would someone recognise your artwork? Would you say there is some sort of recognisable characteristic?

I think there are a few characteristics of my work I could identify; I hand stitch all of the detail and texture in my work onto unbleached cotton fabric, and shy away from sewing  into a coloured or patterned base. I create texture with the thread by employing stitches which use various kinds of knots and twists, but I rarely do them as one is supposed to. Instead I create huge loops and shell shapes by altering how I stop the thread with the next stitch. In a number of works I have used small objects like keys and tiny models or identifiable pieces of maps or gauze to help communicate what I’m trying to say. I almost always include words or phrases which the meaning or narrative for the most part is not immediately accessible. I think this has sometimes been a choice to try to impose some kind of required commitment from an audience to look a bit harder and spend some time with the work to see if they can make some meaning out of it for themselves. One of my favourite phrases that I manipulate come from the names given to the colours of the B&Q emulsion range! The final possible identifiable characteristic is the impression that the work may not be completely finished because some of the inner workings are visible or loose threads hang from the work, but these are deliberate choices. The questions I’m asking when I make the work certainly don’t feel neatly answered or tied up in a satisfying way.

Do any past or current artists inspire you?

I would say that Louise Bourgeois is a major inspiration, as is Tracey Emin. Bourgeois often presented humanoid or body-object hybrid forms with no embellishment or adornments and let the form announce its reason for being. Despite this, they speak very eloquently and evocatively. I am always in awe of her work and the mastery of presenting an object with such clarity about why it exists without any superfluous fussing. I wrote my final MA research paper on Emin’s 1995 tent Everyone I’ve Ever Slept With 1963-1995 because it seemed evident that the conditions with which she prescribed it to be experienced by the viewer were in direct agreement with what I understood to be the personal information exchanged. It felt appropriate to require the viewer to give themselves by crouching down and crawling inside the work and for there to be an equal transaction. After all this was a work of explicit testimony, and if construed as intended, effect. I often think about how arrangements like this could be employed in my own work.

Legs knee detail. Image: R Riley

Which current art world trends are you following?

I am drawn to tactile, textural artwork which offers more than shock and provocation, something which can be wondered about and may still be unclear later. I find digital work quite inaccessible. The screen flattens what I can see happening and I find it hard to get my head around something existing only inside the device I’m holding. Over lockdown, without being able to go and see work, I have found Instagram hashtags to be a doorway to new artists’ work. I’ve got a thing about big painted clay pots such as those made by Michaela Yearwood-Dan. There is something about knowing the final form has been shaped by actual hands and the artist has experienced the textures of the materials in order for it to be in existence. I also follow the subversive stitch hashtag which is always a collection of clever and often delightfully sweary sewn work. I have always been captured by miniature work and by the skill and commitment required to produce it. Maja Quille is an artist I found out about recently who arranges tiny metal filings on pins into the most pleasing perfectly-edged shapes, which give me the impression of creating order from debris, left behind by another process.

How do you think the Internet has impacted the art industry?

This year there have been an explosion of virtual exhibitions and online showcases. The capability to produce these and ability to share work with audiences who may not otherwise be able to access it has to be a good thing. However, I hope this will not signal a reduction in funding of real-life venues and opportunities to experience art because it’s more cost effective. Lack of footfall is of course going to have an enormous effect on the viability of museums and galleries, and these institutions, while absolutely in need of various kinds of change, are very important to our cultural identity, our wellbeing, our heritage, and inspiring the next generation of artists.

How do you seek out opportunities?

Central Saint Martins is one of six colleges making up the umbrella university UAL, and therefore the administration of alumni communications includes many hundreds of other postgraduate students. The postgraduate community emails provide information about opportunities for collaboration, workshops, funding opportunities and projects to apply to. I was able to take part in a science communication project with Imperial College London last autumn which commissioned artists to make work in response to medical research.

Works were exhibited at the Science Museum and Elephant West gallery space in White City. It was an invaluable opportunity to visit researchers in their labs, talk to them about their studies, and show them the thinking we do to ‘translate’ their science into colourful, textural and accessible visual artwork.

Legs detail. Image: Heini King

What is the best advice you have ever received?

I had an excellent relationship with my second year tutor, Dean. We had regular tutorials to discuss the progress of artwork and research and to talk about how the thinking behind the work had moved on since the last time we’d met. Dean is a PhD supervisor and there really was no end to his knowledge! I found myself writing pages and pages of notes in our meetings. I’d had some advice in a crit the day before we met to not include an element of my work in the piece I was making. However, I felt strongly that I wanted to have it in the piece. Dean asked me if the person giving the advice had provided a reason for it, which they hadn’t, and then encouraged me to come up with one for my point of view. It was in this moment that I realised I had developed such a good understanding of and rationale for my own practice that I could disregard the advice because I could clearly articulate why this element was important. Confidence that you know your practice and having considered, questioned rationale for your decisions about your work takes a long time, but it is a huge relief and huge achievement to realise you are entitled to refuse others’ advice. This was a real revelation for me.

Can you tell us about any upcoming projects?

Because lockdown happened before we were due to have our graduate show, we have been promised an opportunity to show our work when it is safe to have groups of people in the same space. I was exceptionally lucky to have my Legs sculpture selected to be shown at the Saatchi Gallery last month, and very grateful to be able to gather some feedback on work that has been in planning since last autumn. I’d love to have an opportunity to show it alongside my incredible talented MA Fine Art coursemates.

I’m having an (enforced) break from work for the foreseeable future due to a diagnosis of a neurological injury which means I’m not able to sew. A. longer term plan is to construct an embroidered cabinet which were popular for women to make in the 17th century. They were made to hold small treasures, letters and jewellery, and had secret compartments, and were covered in embroidered biblical scenes on the faces of the box. I have spent some time already wondering how I might explore the depiction of stories or lessons with a contemporary secular underpinning.