The Two Sides of LaMika

LaMika Riley

LaMika Riley is a Detroit-born, abstract artist whose interest in art started at a young age: “I remember drawing in middle school, trying to compete with the boys who were drawing muscle men and robots!” LaMika Riley found her inspiration to try painting while watching Bob Ross on Public Access Television.

“He made painting look so beautiful and effortless, that I tried my hand at landscapes in 2010, and I’ve been painting ever since!”

LaMika loves to explore landscapes, abstract ideas, and art in general, in lively bright colors. Her work is filled with expression and passion that she has credited to her experience as a mother, as a woman, and quite frankly as an artist still discovering her artistic personality.

I would describe my work as a study in color and a study in emotions.

I used a poured paint process in my earlier works, but recently I have begun using actual flame and have created my current Controlled Pyro-Manipulator collection.

I create art to share my vision and expression and messages with the world. I am an artist at my core and I aspire to be like my painting predecessors including Dell Pryor and Jack Whitten.

My work process includes an intimate color process because I prefer vibrant, contrasting colors. My colors are manipulated with various chemicals and ended with a heat process that sets the colors and the movement.

Many of my subjects in my art are women and women’s issues. I explore themes and emotions of freedom, power, creativity, creation, nurturing, and serenity in abstract applications. The emotion is present, even if the actuality of the entity is not visually present.

It is my expectation that my art will evoke positive emotions. I would like for the audience to get a different experience each time that they are confronted with my work.

Hopefully that experience is always a positive experience. 

It is my hope that my art allows you, the viewer, an everlasting and ever-changing experience. You will feel engaged and see something uniquely different with each encounter; it allows room for a view experienced in many different ways.

Even in terms of how my pieces are hung: no right way is up.