Riae Suicide

I scrolled past her and went back. It was the sweat. At that point I decide nothing, I just save it, and then it sits in the archive until it starts asking for something. That is Riae (Orange Van), and something in it is faintly vulgar and never once tips into cheap. Across four canvases I still cannot find the line it walks.

Who is Riae Suicide?

Riae Suicide is an Italian alternative model who has worked under that name since 2007, known for tattoo and alternative modelling and for doing her own hair and make-up on set.

She has been featured in Playboy Italia and in tattoo and alternative-modelling press including Inked, and she publishes her own work to an audience of several million on Instagram.

This summary is put together from publicly available sources and has not been checked with her. If something here is wrong or she would rather it were not here, write to the studio and it is corrected or removed.

Painting Riae Suicide in the studio

Riae (Bathing in Red) gives away less than the other three, and that is why I kept coming back to it. There is something in that canvas I never managed to identify. I stopped trying somewhere in the second week and painted it anyway.

Most of Riae (Blue Hair) is not her at all. It is what she is kneeling on, and I could not tell you why that had to take four weeks. Something in her face shifted while I was working and I did not notice until I was nearly done. I left it exactly as it was, and that is the reason the painting stopped when it did.

In Riae (Mobile Phone) neither of us is looking at the other, and that suits me.

What the four have in common only became visible once they were standing side by side: in none of them does she meet my eye. I did not plan that, and nobody chooses a thing like that. Whatever is holding her attention is not me and is not you.

Every one of these photographs was built for three seconds of somebody's attention. I spent weeks inside each of them. There is no print of any of the four; the canvases are the only versions that exist.

Riae Suicide paintings: what exists

There are four original paintings of Riae Suicide, oil on canvas and oil on stretched canvas, from 100 × 80 cm to 120 × 80 cm. Each is a one of one: signed, with a certificate of authenticity, and none of them will be painted again. There are no prints of any of them; the canvases are the only versions that exist.

What is still available, and at what price, is on the cards below.