Connor Renwick: Female Design Council Spotlight: Cheryl R. Riley

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Female Design Council Spotlight: Cheryl R. Riley

Visual artist, furniture designer and art advisor Cheryl R. Riley’s practice has a focus on artists of the Black African Diaspora. “My art explores similarities between seemingly disparate cultures viewed through the lens of gender, history, rituals, implements and symbols. Two sculpture projects have occupied me for the last three years that address societal structures, nourishment, representation, aspiration and transcendence,” she shared. Over the past 30 years, Cheryl has been creating wall art, installations, site-specific public artworks, custom and licensed lighting and furniture designs. She’s exhibited in over 60 group and solo shows throughout the U.S., and her works are in the collections of two Smithsonian museums, SFMoMA, the Oakland Museum and the Mint Museum of Craft & Design. She’s a member of BADG (The Black Artists and Designers Guild) and served on the boards of museums and non-profits to contribute to their programming and her list of artist residencies is a long one. There’s no doubt that Cheryl’s accolades and accomplishments are many, and the fact that she earns them in the name of knowledge makes her even more inspirational.