Erin Riley is a girl from Phillie. Something interesting about her is that she’s an artist, and her work is quite unexpected. Her website soberly says “i weave tapestries” and she does well, actually. Her galery says she’s “inspired by the images produced by the internet generation” and that’s true, again. But when Erin answers the question by herself, she says she “weaves tapestries of the pictures you would delete if you ever uploaded that drunk night of debauchery from your camera“. It’s a bit clearer like that.

Of course, after looking at her work, some might say it looks like Martin Parr’s carpets collection. But it’s not. Erin searches for these pictures we’ve all seen on internet, and that part of her work might be common to Parr’s, when he searches objects. But instead of asking questions about the whole world we live in, Erin’s work asks questions about a generation. Her work is about today’s life in his most banal ways. It’s about kids getting drunk, about teen girl posting pics of themselves topless on blogs, it’s about drugs, car accidents,  loneliness, crimes, etc.

The weaving technique changes the way we look at these pictures. They look like they’ve been drawn, or made with a 8-bits computer. This aesthetic reminds something to us, kids that have grown up in the 80-90’s. They look like the “On the Road Again” Telex cover’s clip. No eyes, no face details, they are nobodies, like everybody.

To know a bit more about Erin’s work, here’s a few things to check :

Her website // Her gallery’s website // And this interesting interview.

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V.L. – De Jeunes Gens Modernes

www.dejeunesgensmodernes.com