Katie Riesco at the George Billis Gallery, 2023


Katie Riesco

Katie Riesco is a classically trained artist & painter who lives and works in Fairfield, Connecticut. With her contemporary artwork, Riesco strives to explore figurative & abstract expression.

Her figurative work, which embodies a very loose abstract nature, is an exploration in illuminating the past. Working from amateur vintage photographs that she feels capture the essence of a people long past, Riesco attempts to bring the ethos of these people into our hectic modern times. Her paintings can be seen as an antidote to the harshness found in the contemporary world around us. Yet this reverence of the past gives her work a nostalgia & longing of a different world. What happened to a simple life and innocence? This is the question that Riesco’s work tries to grapple with. Through her exploration of this topic, the viewer feels the subtle peace of a bygone era whose trials and tribulations are long forgotten. Riesco’s paintings give us a peaceful window into the lives of vintage everyday hero/heroine.