In “Untitled: Card Players, The Friendly Game” Enrico Riley depicts a group of matriarchs practicing a game of chance. In his “Card Player” Riley conjures games of chance –the act of concealing and revealing one’s cards and the heightened risks involved– as a metaphor for some of the pressures experienced by Black Americans. The stacks of gold coins are a metaphor for human, and specifically Black cultural riches, and the wealth of one’s spirit.

Enrico Riley is a Guggenheim fellow and Rome Prize winner. His paintings investigate violence and hope in historical and contemporary cultural traditions in African American culture. The artist uses formal techniques to expose the limitations of linear narratives, including fractured bodies, hidden figures, ambiguous environments, and cropped frames. Riley is featured in State of the Art 2020 at Crystal Bridges Museum and has a forthcoming solo exhibition at the University of New Hampshire Museum of Art. Riley had a solo show at the American Academy in Rome. He is in collections including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Hood Museum, and Studio Museum in Harlem. He is a professor at Dartmouth College.