Kuropatwa, Riki
Riki Kuropatwa
Originally from Winnipeg, Riki lives in Edmonton. She is a figurative painter, who works mainly in acrylic on wood panel. Her work explores human dynamics and always has a strong narrative component. Composition, colour, gesture, and facial expression are key features. Her work is highly accessible and invites the viewer to take an active role in meaning-making. For the past several years Riki has been teaching pre-service teachers how to teach art at the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. She has exhibited her work in several galleries across Canada and is in many private collections and is represented by the Bugera Matheson Gallery in Edmonton. Riki obtained her Master of Fine Art from York University, her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba, and her Bachelor of Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.
Her recent paintings centre around our social interactions and gathering places, also known as ‘third spaces’, those places that are neither home nor work. In an increasingly virtual world, our third spaces are under pressure to maintain their purpose and viability, the public gallery space is of critical importance to the well-being of the people it serves.
My work invites the viewer to enter the work and take an active role in building the narrative(s) and meaning and often elicits personal stories and reflections. I am interested in the interior and exterior lives of people. I have always been a keen observer of human behaviour and am endlessly interested in the way we look at and move through the world. My paintings are an exploration and a love letter to that which makes us human, with particular interest in our shared spaces. Another area I explore in my work is people’s relationships to the significant objects in their life, which sparked my interest in Thing Theory, a branch of critical theory that explores the relationships humans have with objects, both practical and aesthetic. I present people gathered, listening, talking, reacting, or deeply lost in their own thoughts. I am interested in a wide variety of people, with particular attention to older adults, who are less often less visible in art.
