Adrienne Riseley
Born and raised in Lower Hutt and with her art studies completed at Otago School of Fine Arts, Adrienne Riseley has since lived the majority of her adult life in Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden. She is married to a Swede and has two teenage children. There, she has gained recognition as a well respected ceramic artist. She has held solo exhibitions and been included in a number of collaborative shows in Sweden, France, USA, and Finland as well as receiving numerous state and private grants. Many of her works can now be seen in public spaces around Sweden.
Adrienne’s work often reflects a life of constant adjustment on the one hand and grasping after cultural and social identity on the other. Adjusting, as a way of belonging, can mean the difference between survival and demise. In this work, however, we can glean a sense of discomfort in this state of constant change and a recognition that in the end the self always seeks true expression.
In 2005 Adrienne returned with her family to live in New Zealand for two years. It was a time of reacquaintance with her roots and, from her Maungaraki garage studio, she produced a series of work in everything from clay and totara logs to corked-backed coasters, cork spice-jar lids and acrylic paint.
The family then returned to Sweden and Adrienne found that her seeing had once again been altered:
“I was surprised to find that when I returned to Sweden I was seeing my second home in a new light for the first time. This new light suddenly shed on both countries was the starting point for this new body of work which I produced last Swedish spring. Deconstruction and reconstruction of familiar local structures along with added structures to assist access (such as bridges and cranes) has become a new key to ways of belonging and toward a new concept of home. One of my favourite quotes at the moment is by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and explains my thoughts quite eloquently: “Subjectivity is the truth “. It is, quite simply, all we have.”
Adrienne Riseley, Göteborg, 2008
For more information about Adrienne, please contact us at the gallery.