Infinite Receptors

As part of the second edition of Black History Month Florence, the American Academy of Rome in collaboration with the Museo Novecento presents a lecture by the artist Enrico Riley moderated by Justin Randolph Thompson, curator of the project. Enrico Riley is in residence in Rome as a member of the Rome Prize in visual arts of the American Academy. His research currently focuses on aspects of Judaeo-Christian history involving persecuted individuals, in which strong correlations can be found with the experiences of Afro-descendants today. Riley works with painting and drawing, and is particularly interested in the masters of the Middle Ages and the Italian Renaissance, as details are sedimented in their works that leave ample room for reinterpretation.

Enrico Riley studied visual studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover and painting at Yale University in New Haven. He is currently an associate professor of art study at Dartmouth College. Among his solo exhibitions are those held at Giampietro Gallery (New Haven), Pageant Gallery (Philadelphia) and Hampshire College (Amherst). His work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions including those at Lori Bookstein Fine Art (NY), Reeves Contemporary (NY), The Painting Center (NY), American Academy of Arts and Letters (NY), Museum for the National Center of Afro-American Arts (Roxbury). Riley was the recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Prize in Painting and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for Painting. In 2016 he was the winner of the Rome Prize in visual arts and is currently a member of the American Academy in Rome. His works are held in the collections of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Columbus Museum, the Nasher Museum and Dartmouth College.