The River Doesn't Care

David Risley - The River Doesn't Care

opening of the exhibition

David Risley

The River Doesn't Care
New watercolour paintings

Vernissage Thursday 4 November 5-7 pm 
Ekely, Istedgade 51C, Copenhagen V

Exhibition runs 4-27 November

The River Doesn't Care 

We are delighted to introduce a solo show of 18 new watercolour paintings by David Risley. 


I stopped painting for over 20 years. 

Whilst not making art, I spent all my time with art and artists–looking, listening, learning. I had always presumed that subject matter drove meaning; that the content of a work leads us directly to meaning, or what a painting is about. The more I learned, the less true this appeared. 

It took me a long time to understand what my favourite artists painted. Chardin, Vermeer, Morandi, Neel, Cezanne, Manet, Vuillard, Tal R, Katz, Hammershøi, Hartley, Freilicher, Caulfield, Sleigh, and other greats appear to have made paintings out of almost nothing. They painted their family and friends, their surroundings, the things on their table, apples, dogs, everyday life. Contrary to normal logic, the lack of content in these paintings produced the most meaning. A schism exists between the subject and its contents. The subject of a Hammershøi painting is an empty room, doors, windows, walls, but it’s really about love, loss, time, memory, light, death. Giorgio Morandi painted old jugs and bottles. Everyone who ever picked up a brush has painted such images, and they remain just that: images of old jugs and bottles. When painted by Morandi, though, an alchemy takes place—those pictures suggest family, isolation, melancholy, joy. Cezanne’s paintings of apples say more about death than his pictures of skulls. Tits and skulls don’t make a painting about sex and death; a painting of an apple might, unexpectedly and heartbreakingly. 

Now, after my 20-year hiatus from painting, I’m ready to reverse the flow. I'm making paintings of things I care about, things that matter to me, things I love: family, friends, flowers grown by my girlfriend, other beloveds. I remain hopeful that meaning can find its way into these paintings somewhere somehow.

David Risley, October 2021

Book signing
Against God, Against Guns, Against Energy.
Gun Store Paintings by David Risley
A collection of 64 watercolour paintings by Risley, painted during the pandemic in 2020.

At the opening there will be an offer for the Gun Store book + a5 Gun Store watercolour for 1.500 DKK

The paintings, all the same motif, of people waiting in line for the gun store to open in Culver City, LA, when lockdown was announced. As the world changed dramatically that year, the paintings changed as well. When BLM protests started David added flames to the hills, then the Gun Store itself caught fire. People still waiting in line.

The image of the Gun Store is an image of America. The image changes as it changes.


Texts by Lindsay Preston Zappas, Labi Siffre, William Pym and Christian Viveros-Fauné.
Published By At Last Books, Copenhagen



Stop by Ekely, Istedgade 51c, Thursday 4 November 5-7 pm
The artist will be present.
There will be served vine from Vinova and Beer from Nørrebro Bryghus.



Best regards


Sebastian Bjerggaard


For more information write to
sebastian@ekely.dk or call 30 34 43 41.
https://ekely.dk/