Life & Work with Destini Riley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Destini Riley. They and their team shared their story with us below:

Destini T. Riley is an award-winning filmmaker from Durham, North Carolina. Her work often explores the relationship between character, color, and experience through a wide range of mediums such as animation, design, video, and installation. Within every project, she is intrigued by investigating the power of expression and voice. As a Black woman raised in Durham, North Carolina, she began her creative research by finding ways to bridge and comprehend experiences with race, class, community, and culture through her creative practices.

She has been profiled as one of the youngest Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Cinema. Riley’s work has appeared in The New York Times, around the globe at various notable film festivals such as Full Frame Documentary Festival, Aspen Shortfest, Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago International Film Festival, Festival International du Film Pan Africain de Cannes, Ann Arbor Film Festival, DOXA, and is archived in the permanent collection of The Smithsonian Institution: National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her paintings were featured in the satirical comedy, Sorry To Bother You.

In 2021, she earned her bachelor’s in Fine Arts from the Penny Stamps School of Art and Design at The University of Michigan Ann Arbor and currently working as a Motion Artist for the LA Clippers.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
My journey as a professional creative has not been the easiest, and I often find times where I have been uninspired but learning to give myself grace has provided a sense of strength that I need. I have learned that as an artist, sometimes it is okay not to create and to have moments of doubt. The biggest lesson I have learned from being a professional artist is authenticity, staying true to yourself within your art will ultimately push you to create from within.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am an interdisciplinary artist which means that my sources of inspiration often transform into something indescribable and abstract across several mediums. My painting creations are titled “Legends” which comes from a mantra I would repeat to myself in times of doubt. I believe that every person is legendary, it just takes confidence and motivation to discover the legendary qualities within.

I strive for that “POP” factor (inside joke between my father and I) within my personal art pieces and most of my Legends are derived from a place of self-reflection. Majority of these human-like creatures in my work are androgynously poetic that it transforms less about perception and more about emotion.

I haven’t seen many personal styles provoke such emotions, and that’s what sets it apart. That is what makes a Legend piece of art legendary.

Can you share something surprising about yourself?
My brand is constantly evolving and I literally cannot wait to share my evolution with the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://destinitriley.com
• Instagram: @destinitriley