Nora Riggs, Couple Admiring Themselves in a Mirror, 2023. Image courtesy of Emma Gray HQ.
Emma Gray HQ presents Touchy-Feely, an exhibition of new paintings by Nora Riggs. Her depicted scenes present a multifaceted view of camaraderie and intimacy, reminding us of the mild indignities of youth and adulthood. While not autobiographical per se, her paintings emerge from an invented reality adjacent to our own. At one step remove, Riggs distills and alters it through colors, textures, shapes, and patterns that suggest aesthetics from another era without the pungent drifts of nostalgia. That her ideas rise like froth before she sleeps offers insight into her paintings. They are condensed memory images, emblematic of a time and place, at once playful and densely psychological. Her deft use of paint supports this mood, articulating an individuated vision about fugitive memories. Which is another way to say that she devotes her craft, one so specific to her sensibilities, to the complexity (awkwardness, tenderness, oddness, funniness) of intimacy.
Touchy-Feely is on view through January @ Emma Gray HQ, email info@emmagrayhq.com or call 310-497-6895 to book a visit
