Eric-Paul Riege on the Beyond the Art Podcast
Photo by Julia Featheringill. Courtesy of The Bell / Brown Arts Institute.
Eric-Paul Riege spoke with Cray Bauxmont-Flynn of the Beyond the Art podcast about his multimedia artistic practice, its roots in Diné weaving traditions and concepts of sanctuary, and his work’s relationship to materiality and memory.
“I consider all my work as these totems of memory,” Riege says, describing the life of the materials before he works with them. Wool is washed and carded, faux fur is manufactured, thread is spun and passes through many different hands before entering Riege’s studio. This process of constant transformation continues through and beyond the artwork’s making. Riege invites audiences to touch the work within installations, and seldom considers work “finished,” often adding to or deconstructing sculptures continuously. “I see the fiber of the work as its skin, and so it’s always exciting seeing it grow and morph and bruise and marked,” he says, later expanding, “I really welcome them as having their own agency of existing in the world, and going out, and collecting that.”
Riege also speaks to his engagement with institutional archives, particularly in preparation for his solo exhibition ojo|-|ólǫ́, at David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown University, and Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington. In preparation for the exhibition, Riege visited with the collections of Brown’s Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and the University of Washington’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, notably Navajo weavings, jewelry, dolls, and works that blend Christian and Indigenous symbology. The resulting exhibition honors Indigenous labor and knowledge practices, while highlighting the role of institutional art and tourism markets in enacting colonial dispossession.
ojo|-|ólǫ́ is curated by Nina Bozicnik, Senior Curator at the Henry Art Gallery, and Thea Quiray Tagle PhD, Associate Curator at the The Bell/Brown Arts Institute, and co-organized by the Bell Gallery at Brown University and the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington. The exhibition will be on view at the Henry from March 14 through August 30, 2026. A public opening will be held on Friday, April 3.