Patrick Riley Dream Within A Dream Review

Only At Sunset (My World), (2021), oil on canvas

We live in a world of light and shadow, chaos and order. The world has changed and sometimes it feels like what we once knew is a dream away. Kentucky based artist Patrick Riley’s debut exhibit, Dream Within A Dream, pays homage to the natural world, capturing nature from a unique perspective. Riley paints using oil and applies layers with the use of a palette knife. Riley is heavily inspired by poet Edgar Allen Poe, from the name of his studio PoeSoul Studio to the name of the exhibit Dream Within A Dream, which is based off of Poe’s poem of the same name.

One of the first paintings in the exhibit is Believe You Can Shine (2022), an oil painting of a bright yellow and red flower set against a black backdrop. This piece seems to say that in dark times, when hope and light are in short supply, one must simply believe they can shine. It’s only in dark times when light shines the brightest. It’s only with the pitch black background that the flower truly shines, and this work seems to speak to the chaos Riley seeks to illuminate with his work. In keeping with the theme of belief, on the wall directly opposite from Believe You Can Shine lies Every Dream Is Real (2022). This work finds three young Black ballerinas backstage looking out into the crowd of an expecting audience. Black women are underrepresented in the industry of ballet, which makes these three dancers stand out even more. As unlikely of a dream that it might be, the desire to be a dancer is a valid one. These two works paired together speak to the dreamworld that Riley sees in his mind and seeks to manifest through his art.

Every Dream Is Real, (2022), oil on canvas

Riley pays homage to nature not just with his landscape portraiture and prose, but also by incorporating natural elements into the works themselves. His painting Now Let Me Go (2021) is one example of this practice. This landscape painting has rows of plants as far as the eye can see leading to back trees in the background. The painting has an iridescent shimmer to it due to the ironweed seeds Riley incorporated directly into the work, a nod to Riley’s Southern roots as the plant can be found in the various parts of the South, East Coast, and the Midwest¹. It’s easy to connect with this piece not only because of its visual appeal but because there is ironweed growing on the Louisville Grows grounds within plain view of the exhibit. Another of Riley’s works that incorporates elements from nature is Alone With The Poppies (2020). This work has two poppy flowers opened in the foreground leaning back to a field full of smaller poppies-stretching back into the warm sunset. Around the sun is a subtle outline of a phoenix. In addition to Riley’s impasto style, ground up poppy seeds were included into the paint making it shimmer in the natural light. Alone With The Poppies feels fitting as it was created during a time in which most of the world was supposed to be alone. Although some of these natural elements have known health benefits, one can only speculate the effects of staring at paintings with these elements residing inside them. Perhaps these works can be a balm to the soul when one looks at the erosion and decay of the natural world around us.

Alone With The Poppies, (2020), oil on canvas infused with poppy seeds

Within this dreamlike world in Riley’s mind, sunflowers must live and thrive. From watercolors, resin embellished photos, and impasto style oil paintings, sunflowers are in abundance throughout the exhibit. Sunflowers have often been associated with loyalty, happiness, joy, and a nuclear free world². These flowers have been said to follow the sun wherever it travels in the sky and this sentiment shows up in Riley’s artistry. Two works I resonated with were Until That Day (2021) and Let Me Love You To Death (2021). The former is an oil painting of a field full of wilting sunflowers-these flowers are thought to follow the sun wherever it travels, but with only a blue and black sky above them, they have no choice to droop to the ground. In Let Me Love You To Death, two wilting sunflowers appear to be holding each other as most of their petals have fallen to the ground-it’s almost as if these two sunflowers are holding each other on their last day of life. This work brings the idiom of “love you to death” to life visually using flowers, a subject that isn’t typically personified with love as much as it's been a symbol for love. If the titles were paired together it would read “Until That Day Let Me Love You To Death,” a sentiment many can relate to. Both these works show a lack of sunlight with the dark sky in Until That Day, while Let Me Love You To Death shows the dying flowers against a setting sun. Without light or hope of anything to look forward to, all one can do is love those closest to them.

Let Me Love You To Death, (2021), photo on metal print

An earmark of Riley’s work is that he seeks to capture his subjects from a unique perspective. His goal is to have the viewer feel as if they are seeing the subject for the first time. He accomplishes this with While The Orchid Sings (2018), a photo of a row of orchids in bloom. The photo appears to have been taken at night and the rows of orchid blooms mimic open mouths singing into the darkness. There is a shimmering quality to the photo, possibly due to the angle of the shot and the way the light bounces off the petals, giving the “singing orchids” a supernatural feel-as if the orchids were singing either to the heavens or whatever lost souls in the night who may be listening. We behold the beauty of flowers on a daily basis, but rarely do we “hear” them. In addition to While The Orchid Sings, another piece that made me rethink how I see flowers is Where The Fairies Live (2021). This is another in Riley’s series of metal prints containing flowers, the drooping pink bell shaped flowers seem like the perfect place for a fairy to fly into. Just as you can see the silhouette of a fly inside a flower, in my mind’s eye I can see fairies calling these blooms home. I’ve never thought of flowers as homes for mythical creatures, but in Riley’s world it may very well be possible.

While The Orchid Sings, (2018), photo on metal print

Patrick Riley uses various mediums to paint the world he sees and the one that could be. Sometimes the paintings don’t tell the entire story, many of them are accompanied by original poems from Riley to further expound upon the messages that lie within the paintings. There are themes of love, solitude, and light and shadow throughout Riley’s works. With climate change and shifting seasons, the world Riley paints and photographs may become a “Dream Within A Dream.” Just as the sand slips through Poe’s hands in his poem³, we are losing our grip on the environment around us. It’s fitting that Riley’s debut exhibit not only honors nature and the way we see it, but also that it’s housed in the Louisville Grows Healthy House gallery. Patrick Riley’s Dream Within a Dream shows the viewer nature in a way they may not have seen-inviting us to take a closer look at the things around us and most importantly: it invites us to dream.

“Ironweed Plant: Identify, Grow, and Preserve It,” Survival Sullivan, accessed November 8, 2022, https://www.survivalsullivan.com/ironweed/

“Sunflower Meaning and Symbolism,” Flower Glossary, accessed November 8, 2022, Sunflower Meaning And Symbolism | Flower Glossary

“A Dream Within a Dream” by Edgar Allen Poe, Poetry Foundation, accessed November 3, 2022, A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe | Poetry Foundation