Duke Riley

Duke Riley received his BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and his MFA from Pratt Institute. Riley is fascinated by maritime history and events around urban waterways. His signature style interweaves historical and contemporary events with elements of fiction and myth to create allegorical histories. His re-imagined narratives comment on a range of issues from the cultural impact of over development and environmental destruction of waterfront communities to contradictions within political ideologies and the role of the artist in society. Riley has had solo exhibitions at Magnan Metz Gallery, New York City; the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland; the Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY; and the Havana Biennial (2009 and 2015), among other venues. He has received numerous awards and commissions, including a Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters &Sculptors Grant, the U.S. State Department’s SmARTpower Program in China and the MTA Arts For Transit commission for the Beach 98th Street Station renovation. In spring of 2016, Riley partnered with Creative Time and the Brooklyn Navy Yard to produce the public art sensation, ‘Fly By Night’, which was again produced in 2018 by 1418 Now and the London International Festival of Theater. Riley lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.