Alfred University News

Katarina Riesing, associate professor of Foundations, to show work in solo exhibition opening Aug. 25

Artwork by Katarina Riesing, associate professor of Foundations in the Alfred University School of Art and Design, will be shown in a solo exhibition that opens Thursday, Aug. 25, at the Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College.


Artwork by Katarina Riesing, associate professor of Foundations in the Alfred University School of Art and Design, will be shown in a solo exhibition that opens Thursday, Aug. 25, at the Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College.

The show, titled “Well Worn,” will be on view through Oct. 12. An opening reception is set for Thursday, Aug. 25, from 5-7 p.m.; Riesing will offer remarks at 5:50 p.m.

Riesing’s silk paintings and colored pencil drawings combine the delicate and ephemeral – silk, lace, embroidery and lingerie – with the private unsightly and sometimes unsettling parts of the body – moles, folds of skin, veins and unshaven hairs.

While the figures themselves are cropped in as abstracted torsos, butts, or crotches, these personal moments are rendered in dye and embroidery with careful detail revealing an honest depiction of the hidden topography of the body. The result is often uncomfortable yet familiar – a too close look.