INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST KATARINA RIESING
Artist Interview · Antakly Projects
Katarina
Riesing
Dyed silk, hand embroidery, and the radical beauty of imperfect skin — from Alfred, NY to Tucson, AZ
On Her Work
While other painters give you glistening youth or portraits pulsing with intensity, Katarina Riesing goes somewhere stranger and more interesting: she zooms in. Her enlarged cross-sections of skin — rendered on silk and embroidery — evoke something simultaneously gorgeous and gross. Acne, scratches, scars, blemishes on butts and thighs and chests, painted with dyes that bleed and bloom into the surface the way skin itself bleeds and blooms.
The silk ground is not incidental — it's structural. Silk is intimate in the way skin is intimate. It's the fabric closest to the body, the material of the things women use to cover and reveal themselves. When Riesing works dye into it with brushes, sometimes using hot wax as a batik resist, the spots of pigment become blemishes, and the blemishes become pattern, and the pattern becomes painting.
"When I apply pigment," she has said, "the dyes bleed and spill into the surface — it's simultaneously gorgeous and gross, inherently visceral." The canvas is the skin of the painting; the painting is the skin of the body. A viewer encountering her work might first register the figure, then the fabric, and only gradually — through careful, repeated looking — arrive at the dynamic, creative consciousness behind every stitch. That consciousness is hers.
Katarina Riesing creates dyed silk paintings of the female figure — dressed in patterned lace, sheer fabric, and hand-embroidered detail. She is drawn to the specific language of fashion: how a zipper catches light, how lace sits against skin, how sheer fabric reveals and withholds at once. In another life, she says, she was a fashion designer. In this one, she is something better — an artist who understands the body through fabric and the painting through dye.
Originally from Knoxville, TN, she has spent the last nine years in rural Alfred, NY, making an enormous amount of work in the quiet. She is represented by Asya Geisberg Gallery in New York. She is about to move to Tucson, Arizona, where she is deeply looking forward to wearing cowboy boots without irony.
01 · Influences
Your greatest inspirations or influences?
I grew up in a family of artists, so my parents remain my biggest influences. From watching them I understood how to be an artist — how to balance studio work with friends and jobs and how to work through ideas and difficulties. Living with artists also taught me early on not to buy into stereotypes of artists. Artists are normal people too.
In regards to specific art influences: I love Christina Ramberg's cropped and bound paintings of women, Sarah Lucas's filthy and funny sculptures, Billie Zangewa's use and re-use of material, Domenico Gnoli's flat figurative abstractions — the list goes on. Outside of art I love scrolling through fashion runway shows. I find endless pleasure and inspiration looking at textiles, patterns, colours, the way fabric falls or hugs the figure. In another life I was a fashion designer.
The Process — From Idea to Finished Work
1
Ideation
A story, a movie, a shopping trip or a walk. Note in the phone, swirl in the brain.
2
Procreate
iPad drawings into reference photos. Figuring out composition, texture, colour, pattern.
3
Dye
Painting dyes into silk with brushes. Sometimes batik (hot wax resist). Steam-set to finish.
4
Embroider
All by hand. 3 stitch types. One week to four months depending on scale.
5
Stretch
Stretched and finished. Done — and it was worth it.
02 · Process
Tell us about your creative process, from the moment of ideation.
Not entirely sure of the exact moment where ideas are conceived — maybe from reading a story or watching a movie or shopping or on a walk. When I have an idea I'll make a note in my phone and then let it swirl in my brain a bit. Then I might take some reference photos. Recently I've been using Procreate on my iPad to draw into photos I've taken, as a way to figure out composition, textures, colours, patterns.
Then I paint — when I say "paint" I mean I dye, using brushes to paint dyes into silk. Sometimes I'll use a batik process with hot wax as a dye resist. Once the paintings are done they're steam-set. After they come out of the steamer I start the embroidery. Depending on the painting and scale, this can take anywhere from a week to four months. All the embroidery is hand-done, and I usually use about three different types of stitches. When the embroidery is complete, I stretch them, and the piece is officially finished.
03 · Dream Project
What would be a dream project for you?
Sometimes I'd love to see my paintings as clothes. I would be interested in making some wearables — though I am very uninterested in the actual clothes-making process. So maybe a collab with a designer?
"Living in a rural area for the last nine years has been incredible for my practice — I have just made so damn much."
— Katarina Riesing
04 · City vs. Rural
Main differences in working in the city vs. away — how has it affected your creativity?
In the city there is so much to see and take in art-wise. I always feel constantly overloaded with ideas and materials and information. It's exciting. The city has no shortage of artist friends who are willing to do studio visits, go see work, talk about work. There is always someone around to vet ideas through.
That being said, living in a rural area for the last nine years has been incredible for my practice in that I have just made so damn much. With not a lot to do and plenty of quiet time and space, it's given me a lot of time to think, experiment, work uninterrupted, and make use of facilities at the school where I teach. I currently have a good set up — a prolific rural studio practice while being driving distance from the city to binge art and friends.
05 · What's Next
What's next for you?
My second solo show She Shed opens at Asya Geisberg on April 20th. I'll have some work in two group shows this summer — one at Nicodim Gallery in LA and the other at Hales Gallery in NYC. This summer, my husband and I are moving to Tucson, AZ, where he will be starting a Psychiatry residency program. Very excited to become a desert person and wear cowboy boots unironically.
Wellbeing
Balance: everything that matters.
Dog walks
Non-negotiable
Lifting weights
Gets it out
British murder mysteries
Cosy crime, always
Horror movies
The good ones
Pizza
A whole category
Sleep
Apparently important
Good relationship
Easy, wonderful
Alone time
Lots of it
Exhibitions
Solo · Opening Now
She Shed
Asya Geisberg Gallery, New York City
April 20 — May 27, 2023
Solo & Two-person history: Ithaca College · Downtown Gallery, Madison WI · SoHo20 Gallery NY · Seligmann Center for the Arts · University of Tennessee Knoxville
Group: Eve Leib Gallery London · Dinner Gallery NY · Essex Flowers NY · Kristin Lorello Gallery NY · Field Projects NY · Spring/Break NY · Laney Contemporary Savannah · Bertrand Productions Philadelphia
Art Influences
Christina Ramberg
Cropped and bound paintings of women. Fragments that reveal more than wholes.
Sarah Lucas
Filthy and funny. Sculpture that refuses to be polite about the body.
Billie Zangewa
The use and re-use of material. Silk and intimacy and the domestic as monumental.
Domenico Gnoli
Flat figurative abstractions. The zoom, the texture, the deadpan close-up.
Fashion Runways
Endless scrolling for textiles, patterns, the way fabric falls or hugs the figure.
Her Parents
Biggest influence of all. They showed her how to be an artist — and a person.
Residencies
Artworks courtesy of Asya Geisberg Gallery and the artist.
Shed, 2023
Cinch, 2023
Walkers, 2023