"Don't need an excuse"

Museum-quality giclée Epson matte paper | Sustainably sourced Ayus wood frame | Hanging hardware included

My name is Jared Riley and I’ve been in prison for 10 years. I started to become interested in art immediately in a very primitive way. I was in “the hole” for my first few years so I had nothing but free time. Sometimes months would pass without my even touching a pencil. I started to get serious in 2017. I was using pencils and grinding up colored pencils for paint. I had to get creative. My mom still has my first attempts at “watercolors”. Bless her! I hope no one ever sees them. I am intellectually inclined so I began reading, learning theory, and technique, and I still do. What I love about art is that it requires me to step into terra incognita, away from feeling I am in control or what I understand, and it rewards boldness. Art allows us to communicate beneath the verbal and to describe the world as an artist. I don’t want to show the world as it is. I’m an inefficient camera. Thousands and thousands of artists can do a picture and it will look just like the photo, 100% realism. There is but one Degas, one Monet, one Lovett, and that is what I’m seeking. I’m working on “style” and I’ll get it. I want to be me. I want to have a style as unique as my face or my fingerprint. I want others to see and understand what I am feeling and communicating. That friends, is art to me!.