The Departure Painting

Tasha Riley is a visual artist working and living in Brisbane, Australia. Originally born in London, Canada, she completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours at Western University where she was awarded the Gold Medal for the BFA Honours program in Studio Arts (1997), The Benjamin Noble Award for Fine Arts in painting (1996), and the Greg Curnoe Art Award for Fine Arts (1993). She has also studied Korean traditional ink painting under regional in Gwang Ju, South Korea (1997-98). Tasha Riley's artwork has been featured in galleries including The McIntosh Gallery and the Palace at 4 am in London, Ontario, Canada. More recently her paintings have been featured in the juried Brisbane Art Prize Exhibition at The Judith Wright Contemporary Art Centre in Brisbane, Australia (2017 and 2016). Tasha's return to painting is inspired by her lived experiences and the world around her. Her paintings express emotions too difficult to convey in words--enabling a reconnection to the deeper self. Her art illustrates particular moments in time each representing relatable emotional states (angst; despair; joy; resilience). How do our personal experiences shape the way we view a painting? How might our perceptions shift when the painting is associated with words? Tasha has this to say about her art: “Painting allows me to express the things I want to say but I am unable to express…the pain of a loss too difficult to speak about, the feeling of rain after a long dry spell, the secret that can never be shared, the feeling of loving and being loved."