“I found out recently that a relative, my great uncle, told everyone I was going to be a famous artist,” Linda Riseley shares of her childhood. “Apparently, everybody laughed.”
Decades later, it’s safe to say the tables have turned. Working between two Australian studios and with a third in development, Riseley has now presented five solo shows and participated in over 100 group exhibitions across Australia, Europe and the USA. Come New Year’s Eve this year, a recent artwork titled Tears of My Haters will even be screening in New York’s Time Square.
“The artwork is a humorous response to the many times being different has been the subject of others’ nastiness,” she says. “I laugh it off now.”
Like so many creative souls, Riseley struggled to fit the mould growing up. With the nurturing of her great uncle and two particular high school teachers however, she finished school knowing she wanted to pursue art. While studying computer science as a back-up plan, she took university art classes and discovered an interest in manipulated photographs and digital art – “faster than painting and so full of creative options!”
After Riseley’s satirical short film was selected to tour Australia for a film festival in 2006, her ‘main break’ came in 2009 when the director of Melbourne’s Brunswick Street Gallery saw her work. Offered a free solo show in the gallery, she’s been showing prolifically since and these days has work regularly included in exhibitions at ARTHOUSE.NYC in New York.
With works that are often intensely personal, it is the artist’s capacity for emotional vulnerability around heavy topics that is especially compelling. She has created multiple works around the issue of infertility for instance, with which she has difficult personal experience. But Riseley’s motivation for creating isn’t merely catharsis. “I share these themes to encourage others to know they are not alone.”
Her varied subject matter is also often influenced by current affairs, particularly where the artist perceives injustices are occurring. “Art is my voice, and I will use it to help people to experience different perspectives,” she explains, “and, if possible, to expand their viewpoints.”
While digital media is still the mainstay of Riseley’s artmaking, she does not shy away from experimenting with all kinds of materials and methods. When she has a concept or message to communicate, her starting point is to determine the best vehicle to express it – even if this requires new skills being learned. For a piece about illegal organ harvesting, six months of research culminated in a moving installation work.
Always working on several themes or ideas at once, Riseley is currently finishing a collection based on the infertility battle, plus a range of new artworks that take cues from interior design aesthetics. The third series currently in the works – from which Tears of My Haters is drawn – speaks to the notion of embracing your authentic self.
Riseley’s best advice to aspiring artists?
“Good art happens when you don’t give a brass razoo what anyone thinks!”
Above: Artist Linda Riseley. Photo: Sapphire Daley. Courtesy: the artist.
Linda Riseley, Distortions – Cut To Bits, 2008. Film still, various sizes. NFS. Courtesy: the artist.
Linda Riseley, Just Do It…SCREAM, 2023. Photography, various sizes. POA. Model: Blanca Bastos. Courtesy: the artist.
Linda Riseley, Tears of My Haters, 2023. Photography, various sizes. POA. Model: Blanca Bastos. Courtesy: the artist.