Rainbow Rooms
Pierre Le Riche
Thank You Bags by Reed van Brunschot | Photo by Airi Katsuta
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Rainbow Rooms recreates a home scene in which the objects are covered with various fabrics and multi-colored yarn. Even the walls themselves are made of woven yarn. The installation reflects the artist’s experience growing up as a gay man in conservative South Africa, and is intended to stimulate a dialogue about identity, exploring struggles of discrimination, acceptance, and masculinity.
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Pierre le Riche (b.1986, Port Elizabeth) is a conceptual artist with a practice spanning many mediums and techniques, and widely recognised for his dynamic use of string and textiles. He uses thread as structural element – both a connection point, an unravelling, and a space demarcation – and evokes a complex set of ready-made associations through material and colour use: exploring permeable gender roles and liminal identities. Weaving a complex set of associations, the threads running through his practice tap into a rich seam of metaphor and ambiguity.
He has participated in many projects and exhibitions in South Africa and abroad, and has worked with the likes of Cartier, Daimler, Power Play, and Trenery. He has recently showed adaptations of his Rainbow Room installation in the United States of America and the People's Republic of China; both being part of traveling exhibitions.
Le Riche holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Cape Town's Michaelis School of Fine Art.
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