Artist, Writer, and Mental Health Advocate
Based in St. Louis, Missouri, I am the founder of Just E Productions.
My work explores mental health, trauma, addiction, gender-based violence, and suicide prevention through art, writing, and community-based projects.
Rooted in lived experience, this work creates space for silence to break, for stories to be witnessed, and for healing to begin.
Art By Erin
Through painting, installation and public engagement, I explore the emotional realities that often remain unseen. My work reflects the complexity of survival and recovery while challenging stigma around mental illness, trauma, and addiction. Each piece is both personal and collective, grounded in the belief that creative expression can foster understanding, connection, and change.
The Age of Obscurity – Original Mixed Media Abstract Painting by Erin McGrath Rieke
About this Artwork
The Age of Obscurity is a 30x40-inch original mixed media abstract painting created in 2024, born from instinct, experimentation, and the layering of multiple paint combinations. Over the course of its creation, the work evolved organically, developing a richly textured and unpredictable surface that invites curiosity and personal interpretation. Each layer, mark, and gesture reflects a balance between intentionality and chance, allowing the painting to take on a life of its own.
This abstract work explores questions without clear answers, engaging both artist and viewer in a dialogue about perception, meaning, and the search for understanding. The layered textures and forms encourage contemplation and reflection, offering a visual meditation on ambiguity, introspection, and the complexity of human emotion.
The Age of Obscurity stands as a testament to the power of experimentation in contemporary abstract painting, showing how layered materials, texture, and spontaneous creative choices can create depth, intrigue, and emotional resonance. The painting encourages viewers to linger, discover, and find their own interpretations within its rich, textured surface.
Artwork Details
Artist: Erin McGrath Rieke
Title: The Age of Obscurity
Year Created: 2024
Medium: Mixed media on canvas
Artwork Size: 30 W x 40 H x 3 D in
Style: Abstract / Contemporary Abstract
Subject: Emotional landscape, introspection, conceptual abstraction
Series: —
Original Artwork: One-of-a-kind
Frame: Optional
Additional Information
Erin McGrath Rieke’s approach to abstract painting emphasizes instinctual gesture, layered textures, and experimentation with materials. In The Age of Obscurity, the layering of mixed media creates subtle depth and complexity, inviting extended viewing and reflection. The unpredictability of the process mirrors the uncertainties of perception and meaning in life, making the work a contemplative exploration of both material and emotional landscapes.
The piece reflects Rieke’s ongoing interest in using abstract expression to capture internal states, evoke thought, and foster personal engagement. Each viewing experience offers new discoveries, making the painting dynamic and resonant over time.
Collecting Original Artwork
Original mixed media abstract paintings by Erin McGrath Rieke combine layered textures, conceptual depth, and emotional resonance. Each work is a singular creation, offering collectors an opportunity to own a unique piece of contemporary abstract art that balances experimentation, introspection, and expressive form.
Amphitrite’s Lair – Original Abstract Ocean-Inspired Acrylic Painting by Erin McGrath Rieke
About this Artwork
Amphitrite’s Lair is a large original abstract acrylic painting created in 2010 and inspired by the mythology of the ancient Greek sea goddess Amphitrite. The work explores the mystery, depth, and powerful stillness of the ocean’s hidden realms through layered color and organic surface texture.
Painted during late winter nights in the earliest days of Divinemoira Studio, the piece carries the mark of an unexpected collaboration between environment and process. As temperatures dropped during the painting process, the acrylic pigments began to freeze mid-application. This natural shift caused the paint to separate and crystallize across the surface of the canvas, producing textures and pigment formations that no brush or tool could intentionally replicate.
The resulting composition shimmers with layered tones of deep ocean blues, subtle mineral-like textures, and crystalline structures formed through freezing pigment. These elements echo the movement of underwater currents and the shifting light that exists far beneath the ocean’s surface.
In creating this work, I found myself drawn into a quiet dialogue with the sea itself. The canvas became a place to explore questions about the unseen depths that exist beneath calm surfaces. What mysteries lie below the visible horizon. What voices rise from the darkest trenches of memory and myth.
Amphitrite’s Lair stands as both a meditation on the elemental forces of nature and an exploration of the unpredictable beauty that emerges when artistic intention meets chance.
Artwork Details
Artist: Erin McGrath Rieke
Title: Amphitrite’s Lair
Year Created: 2010
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Artwork Size: 36 W x 48 H x 2.5 D in
Style: Abstract / Contemporary Abstract
Subject: Ocean inspired abstraction, mythology, elemental landscape
Series: Early Works
Original Artwork: One-of-a-kind
Frame: Optional
Additional Information
This painting reflects an early exploration in Erin McGrath Rieke’s abstract practice, where natural forces and material behavior become collaborators in the creative process. The freezing of acrylic pigments during the painting stage produced crystalline separations and layered textures that give the surface a luminous, almost mineral quality.
The title references Amphitrite, the Greek goddess associated with the sea and the powerful, mysterious forces beneath the water’s surface. By invoking this mythological figure, the painting bridges classical mythology with contemporary abstract expression.
Works like Amphitrite’s Lair demonstrate Rieke’s ongoing interest in emotional landscapes and elemental symbolism. The ocean becomes both subject and metaphor. A place of depth, quiet power, and hidden narrative.
The painting invites viewers to slow down and enter the surface visually, discovering subtle shifts in texture and tone that reveal themselves gradually over time.
Collecting Original Artwork
Original abstract paintings by Erin McGrath Rieke explore emotional landscapes, natural forces, and mythological symbolism through layered composition and expressive abstraction. Each artwork is created by hand and exists as a singular piece within the artist’s evolving practice.
Collectors interested in large contemporary abstract paintings inspired by nature, mythology, and elemental textures may also be drawn to other works by Erin McGrath Rieke.
So Much Left Unsaid – Original Mixed Media Abstract Painting by Erin McGrath Rieke
About this Artwork
So Much Left Unsaid is a large-scale original mixed media abstract artwork created in 2023. Measuring 48 x 48 inches, the piece is constructed through an intricate layering of vintage musical scores, fragments of literary texts, pages from repurposed novels, personal journal writings, and elements of original artwork embedded within acrylic paint.
This work emerged from a period of reflection on grief, memory, and the lingering emotional spaces that remain after loss. Each layer carries a fragment of voice or history. Musical notation, handwritten thoughts, and literary passages overlap and dissolve into one another, forming a visual language that reflects the fragmented nature of remembrance.
The composition invites viewers to move slowly across the canvas, discovering partial phrases, obscured marks, and quiet traces of narrative hidden beneath the surface. In this way, the artwork mirrors the experience of memory itself. Some moments remain vivid. Others fade or become distorted over time.
While deeply personal in its origin, So Much Left Unsaid also speaks to a universal experience. The silence that follows grief often holds words that were never spoken, emotions that were never fully expressed, and memories that surface unexpectedly. Through the layering of visual and textual elements, the work becomes a meditation on absence and presence, loss and endurance.
For me, this piece represents the way fragmented memories and scattered voices can still assemble themselves into a form of meaning. In confronting what remains unsaid, the process of creation became an act of resilience and quiet healing.
Artwork Details
Artist: Erin McGrath Rieke
Title: So Much Left Unsaid
Year Created: 2023
Medium: Mixed media on canvas including acrylic paint, vintage paper, vintage musical scores, repurposed original artwork, vintage novel pages, and collage materials
Artwork Size: 48 W x 48 H x 2 D in
Style: Abstract Mixed Media / Contemporary Abstract
Subject: Grief, memory, emotional landscape
Series: Untamed
Original Artwork: One-of-a-kind
Additional Information
So Much Left Unsaid is part of Erin McGrath Rieke’s Untamed series, a body of work exploring emotional complexity, personal narrative, and the intersection of memory and identity through layered abstraction.
Rieke’s mixed media practice often incorporates reclaimed materials such as vintage book pages, handwritten journals, and musical scores. These elements introduce historical and emotional resonance while blurring the boundary between visual art, literature, and personal archive.
In this piece, the integration of musical notation and textual fragments creates a rhythmic visual structure. The surface of the canvas becomes a field of overlapping voices and histories. Some remain visible. Others are partially buried beneath paint and collage, echoing the way personal and collective memories accumulate over time.
The work reflects the artist’s ongoing exploration of grief, resilience, and the quiet act of reclaiming one’s narrative through creative expression.
Collecting Original Artwork
Original works by Erin McGrath Rieke are recognized for their layered abstraction, emotional depth, and incorporation of literary and archival materials. Each piece is created by hand and exists as a singular work within the artist’s evolving practice of visual storytelling.
Collectors interested in contemporary abstract mixed media art exploring themes of memory, resilience, and personal narrative may also be drawn to other works within the Untamed series.
The Journals are a living body of writing shaped by lived experience, reaching back across a lifetime. They move through memory, illness, survival, and recovery, holding what resists order and the quiet moments of clarity that follow.
Activism and advocacy are where experience meets action. I work with communities to break silence, witness stories, and make space for healing and transformation.
Support this quarter's nonprofit organization
THE ANGEL BAND PROJECT, through art in two simple ways.
1. Buy a curated artwork from this quarter’s collection—proceeds go directly to the featured nonprofit.
2. Donate cash and receive a signed limited edition print as a thank-you.
This quarter, I hopte to raise $500 for the Angel Band Project and Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Art you love, impact you can see.
Practice, Training, and Approach
My work is informed by training in psychology, addiction, and social justice through programs at Stanford University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, and the American Psychological Association. While education provides structure, my practice is guided foremost by listening, bearing witness, and honoring the lived experiences of others.
A Space for Reflection and Change
Art has the power to reveal what words alone cannot. Through Just E Productions, I seek to create work that holds difficult truths while offering the possibility of hope, healing, and transformation.