Got a Girl Crush On: Erin M. Riley and her “Woven Selfies”

We’ve blogged about Erin before, but this is the first installment of GAGC Originals – content created solely for this website.

Erin’s been getting a lot of attention recently–interviewed by Alter Street and on the radio alike, about what it means to be a woman that creates weavings of photos of other women in states of undress. Is it perpetuating a patriarchal subjection of women? Is it commentary on social media and a younger generation seeking outside validation seeing as “selfie” was Oxford Dictionary’s word-of-the-year in 2013? Or is it just really embracing women as sexual beings and how they express that in a digital age? Could be a bit of all of the former, could just be visually interesting–regardless we think they’re freaking amazing!

She culls Google and Facebook for subjects for her wall-sized tapestries. The viewer is confronted with nudity, used tampons, remnants of sex, drugs, and women posing in front of a mirror with their iPhones. A modern discussion of the permanency of what happens once you upload a photo the the internet is tangibly captured in an ages-old art form. 

Check out more of Erin’s work at www.erinmriley.com!