Roger Washington: Pierre, you work across sculpture, installation, pottery, drawing, and textiles. In your recent fiber pieces, the human figure has become increasingly visible. The body gives you a subject that can carry physical, personal, and cultural information at the same time.
What made the human figure necessary to your work at this stage of your practice, and what can you examine through a body that an object or installation does not allow you to examine in the same way?
Pierre le Riche: The figures in my work originate in childhood. I was an anxious, emotional child who rarely felt understood. Growing up as a neurodivergent queer child in a conservative environment, I spent a lot of time alone, often under blankets or in a small fort I built in my closet. At times, I would stare into a bright light source, then close my eyes and watch its traces break into flecks of color against my eyelids. I imagined them as joyous, caring beings that radiated warmth and empathy. They became my guardians of sorts: beings that understood my emotions better than I ever could. When I cried, the tears seemed to make them even more vivid. As I grew older, I forgot them and found other ways to manage my emotions, as though their work was done for the time being.
Pierre le Riche, profile pic. Courtesy @Artist
In 2020, a course of pain medication following a minor surgical procedure brought them back. Lights dancing against the hospital ceiling turned to vivid dreams of them floating around me. I began drawing them immediately, first as blobs of ink and then as sharp outlined figures in marker. The drawing felt like muscle memory: the shapes and curves remained almost identical from one drawing to the next, as though they were stored in my body. I drew them for weeks. They developed into characters in a play about my life, resembling lovers, friends and family, but also embodying ideas and emotions. A single figure could represent a feeling, a mood, an encounter or a yearning.
Around the same time, I bought a rug-tufting machine and began translating the figures into yarn on a large canvas. Turning what had been blurred traces of light into tactile forms changed my relationship to them. The figures became vivid, soft, comforting and real.
The human figure gave these experiences a form. Until then, my sculpture and installation work had been more research-driven, shaped by an academic sensibility and a certain architectural emptiness. I felt that academia left little room for admitting how passionately I cared about something, and these figures somehow filled that void. That training still informs my practice, but I now feel freer to make work grounded in my own experience. For a long time, I worried that working from visions rather than research might diminish the work. I no longer see these approaches as opposites; one does not exclude the other. The shift came from allowing myself to feel and creating the conditions in which I could do so. It is also the first time I have experienced sustained growth in my practice without feeling the need to explore in every direction at once.
Pierre le Riche, The Ritual of Urns, 2026, Acrylic yarn on polyester cloth, 155 x 170 cm. 61 x 66 7/8 in. (Unframed)
RW: Seven works in Intersections Revisited carry the title Intersection Study. Three were made in 2025 and four in 2026. Calling a finished textile a “study” suggests that the image may still belong to a process of testing, reconsidering, or learning rather than representing a conclusion.
Why do you call these works “studies,” and what does that word tell us about the status of each piece within the larger series?
PLR: I initially drew the figures in isolation, each occupying its own space. As I experimented with composition, I found that the images became more compelling when multiple figures occupied the same field: the work remained essentially two-dimensional, while the tufted yarn introduced a third dimension.
As the figures began to overlap, I treated each crossing limb as a distinct shape to be rendered. These overlaps, which I call intersections, became visually intricate and opened a way of thinking about how bodies meet.
I call the works studies because they continue this investigation. Each one explores the intersection as both a formal concern and a metaphor for bodies interacting and paths crossing.
Pierre le Riche, Intersection Study 5, 2026, Acrylic yarn on polyester cloth, 70 x 80 cm. 27 1/2 x 31 1/2 in. 74 x 84 cm. 29 1/8 x 33 1/8 in. (Framed)
RW: For this exhibition, you wrote: “I've become increasingly interested in the marks and imprints people leave on one another over a lifetime.” This gives the physical intersections between your figures another possible dimension: a person can leave an imprint without literally remaining present.
When did you begin thinking about human relationships in terms of marks and imprints, and what makes an experience significant enough to enter your work?
This line of thinking began when I started overlapping the figures. The crossings suggested that one person can leave a mark on another, and that mark can remain long after the person is gone.
PLR: Marks and imprints, whether physical or emotional, are part of being human. They interest me because they are deeply personal yet widely recognizable. Any experience can enter the work, from a fleeting glance to a turbulent relationship. What matters is not its scale but the trace it leaves.
Relatability matters in my work. During my postgraduate studies, I researched Louise Bourgeois and was struck by the importance she placed on the viewer's ability to connect with a work emotionally. That has stayed with me. I want viewers to engage with the work first and then consider how it might relate to their own lives and bodies.
RW: The Ritual of Urns, 2026, returns to an image with a history in your practice. You previously devoted two solo exhibitions to the urn: Urns for the Ashes of my Lost Love in 2021 and Urns for the Ashes of my Lost Lovers II in 2022. In the current exhibition, the urn appears alongside a group of works dominated by human figures.
Why did the urn need to return now, and what has changed between the way you understood that form several years ago and the way you understand it in The Ritual of Urns?
PLR: In Urns for the Ashes of my Lost Lovers, the urn was a metaphorical vessel for memories of experiences I wanted to cherish. Just as urns hold the ashes of the dead, mine held the remnants of the living. In that sense, the object itself became a form of memory.
The urn returns now as a ritual object. The earlier works centered on what was being held; The Ritual of Urns turns towards the act of preservation and what follows it: whether a memory should be kept, honored or allowed to settle.
I return to the urn because memory has become central to the figurative works. If the figures represent people and their intersections register the marks they leave on one another, the urn becomes a place to hold what remains. Seen alongside the figures, it is no longer simply a container; it raises the question of what we do with the traces of our encounters.
Pierre le Riche, Intersection Study 8, 2026, Acrylic yarn on polyester cloth, 80 x 70 cm. 31 1/2 x 27 1/2 in. 84 x 74 cm. 33 /18 x 29 1/8 in. (Framed)
RW: Your current artist statement says that your recent figurative textiles center your queer identity. For a reader encountering the work for the first time, that raises an important question because queerness does not have to depend on a recognizable symbol, narrative, or type of body.
Where does queer identity reside in these works for you, and what would be misunderstood if a viewer looked only for explicit signs of queerness in the figures?
PLR: Many of my earlier works used vibrant colors drawn directly from the Pride flag to signal queerness. The figurative works continue this approach, although color now does more than signal identity. For me, bright, clashing colors can be queer. They vibrate, shout, clash and collide. Placing them alongside one another creates tension, but contrasting colors can also produce unexpected harmony.
The figures depict entangled male bodies, but that alone does not establish a homosexual narrative. In these works, queerness is expressed most directly through color and the relationships between colors. A viewer looking only for recognizable symbols or identifiable couples may overlook this.
What interests me is how seemingly opposing, forceful elements can coexist and change one another. As with the figures, the colors meet at points of intersection. Tension and harmony emerge from that contact.
RW: The images begin through drawing and are ultimately made in acrylic yarn on polyester cloth. A drawn line and a line constructed from yarn cannot behave in the same way: the latter has thickness, texture, weight, and physical presence.
What do you discover only after an image has moved from drawing into fiber, and have you ever reached the textile stage and realized that the material was telling you something different from the drawing you began with?
PLR: Fiber gives the image a vibrance and tactility that drawing alone cannot provide. This is where trusting the process becomes important. I have an idea of the warmth and physical presence I want the textile to carry, but nuances also emerge that I could not have anticipated in the drawing.
I can control the lines and color combinations to a degree, but the overlaps develop as I tuft. Once I cut the pile, the surface opens and subtleties emerge that were not present in the drawing. The drawing maps the intersections, but the material completes them.
Pierre le Riche, Intersection Study 7, 2026, Acrylic yarn on polyester cloth, 80 x 70 cm. 31 1/2 x 27 1/2 in. 84 x 74 cm. 33 /18 x 29 1/8 in. (Framed)
This Interview was conducted by Roger Washington.
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