Bio

     Erik Ritter earned his MFA in 1994 from the San Francisco Art Institute and most recently exhibited during Art Basel week in Miami, Scope International in New York, and the Diego Rivera Gallery in San Francisco. After a successful exhibition at the South Dakota Art Museum his assemblage piece “Bird of Time” was purchased for their permanent collection. He regularly facilitates sustainability themed art workshops for corporations, local elementary schools, and public art centers throughout the Midwest.  For the past ten years, Ritter has taught at several colleges and universities while developing online curriculum as a subject matter expert focusing on “Art in the world and the workplace.” 

Artist Statement

Alchemist Pursuit:

     As a product of America's plastic, throwaway culture, it’s prophetic that I make art out of the stuff people don’t want – junk they no longer need, but don’t quite throw away. My alchemist pursuit is a metaphor to how we interact with the earth. Sometimes the residue is called art.

Aesthetic Meditation:

     I try not to think too much while working. This somewhat random meditation creates more playful results. We are surrounded by an infinite number of overlapping shapes: the room you’re in, the house, the window to the street, the block, and so on. My instinctive process of aesthetic organization relates to this collective evolution of a city. But these are not random acts of creativity, they are instinctive choices to create order within color, space, and concept.

Sponge Toothbrush:

     Somewhere inside every toothbrush is the memory of you brushing your teeth, the way you brush your teeth, and the way you hold your toothbrush. No matter what I try to communicate about something, I don’t think I can compete with that sponge-like quality of objects. So I don’t try to; I just put stuff together and let it speak for itself.