Christina Riley is a Florida born, Ayrshire based artist and writer interested in the relationship humans have with the rest of the natural world and how those relationships shape, and are shaped by, art, culture, communities and politics, particularly in relation to the climate crisis. Her practice often focuses on small details of the natural world, particularly in coastal and underwater environments, and often incorporates collections and found objects and finding ways to blend photography and writing, often in the form of artist’s books.
Her debut book Looking Down at the Stars: Life Beneath the Waves was published by Saraband in autumn 2025. She was longlisted for Canongate’s Nan Shepherd Prize for Nature Writing 2019 and a finalist in the 2023 Save Our Seas Ocean Storytelling grant.
In 2019, Riley started The Nature Library, a roving library of books connecting people to land, sky and sea, which in 2024 opened a long term location in Irvine, Ayrshire.
BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS
2025 Looking Down at the Stars: Life Beneath the Waves, Saraband
2025 An Index of the Colour of Water, self-published artist’s book
2021 The Beach Today, Guillemot Press
WRITING
2025 Shadows and Reflections: More than Books, Caught by the River
2024 Meeting the Ice, Glacial Narratives
2024 The Same Sunlight, Gutter Issue #30
2024 Fragments of Romance, Scotland’s Coastal Romanticisms, Romanticism on the Net #79
2024 Touchstones, Going To Ground: An Anthology of Nature and Place, Little Toller
2024 Shadows and Reflections: Quaking Bog, Caught by the River
2023 The Limit, Extra Teeth Issue #8
2022 Shadows and Reflections: The Beach Today, Caught by the River
2021 Roses, Minding Nature Journal
2021 Emerging From a Mussel Shell, Caught by the River
2021 Touchstones, Little Toller’s The Clearing
2020 The Nature Library, The Liminal Voice
2020 Roses, Crested Tit Collective: Rewilding Anthology
2020 Did We Dance?, Gold Flake Paint
2020 The Beach Today, The John Muir Trust
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022 The Beach Today, Eston Arts Centre, Eston
2018 Beneath the Surface, Coburg House, Edinburgh
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025 Texas Photographic Society International Competition, Abilene
2025 Beneath the Waves, Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine
2025 Argyll Hope Spot Retrospective, The Rockfield Centre, Oba
2024 Gulabi Print Show, Outlier, Glasgow
2024 Dookit Brewing Print Show, Market Gallery, Glasgow
2023 Enterprising on the Edge, Inverness Creative Academy, Inverness
2023 Quota, Art Walk Porty Festival, Portobello
2023 Argyll Hope Spot, The Rockfield Centre, Oban
2022 Seaweed Gardens, Oban
2021 The Magical Octopus II, Knockvologan Studies, Mull