reilly sheriff

is an emerging artist currently based in Santa Barbara, CA but has resided in many cities along the East Coast due his nomadic experience growing up in the foster care system. Reilly has attached himself to many forms of artistic expression throughout the entirety of his life with skills that span multiple mediums, including dance, film, fashion design, carpentry, and fine art, with a focus on fibers/textiles.

He obtained his BFA in Dance at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University in May of 2024. During his education, he studied a variety of dance techniques and bodywork studies including Gaga, Somatics, and Kinesiology. He has participated in intensives such as Batsheva Dance Company’s GagaLabs 2021-2026 & Bobbi Jene’s Smith LADP Intensive. In 2023, he joined HIND LEGS, a performance project company under the direction of Ben Green.

Reilly has also experimented with his interests in filmmaking and debuted his first short film with collaborator Shelagh Morphy in April of 2024 and is currently the Archivalist for an upcoming documentary about the Donut Dollies of the VietNam War, titled Welcome Home, Sister.

He began his research with textile visual art in 2021 after he acquired a vintage Singer Studio knitting machine. The craft was conceived from a loose combination of his strengths in knitwear and his curiosity and desire to create visual scenes that reflect his artistic vision. Reilly has taught himself the operations of the knitting machine in order to actualize his imagination. He creates large-scale pieces so that the viewer may feel surrounded and confronted by the work. His work in the visual arts is the embodiment of his deep fascination with Flora and Fauna and how the fruits of nature can create fibers in which reflective and introspective images can be generated. Reilly began constructing the frames for his work in 2025. He finds it crucial to the work that the frames that encase the tapestries be an extension of the work.

Reilly is currently creating visual art and freelancing as a dancer.