ERIN M. RILEY: LIFE LOOKS LIKE A HOUSE FOR A FEW HOURS

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.

September 5 – October 18, 2025

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.

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.

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.