Erik Ritter

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 intera...

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: 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 sometimes relates to this collective evolution of a city. 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. "Every object tells a story." -Henry Ford Bio: Erik Ritter has been creating one of kind mixed genre constructions for the past 30 years. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has exhibited during Art Basel week in Miami, Scope International in New York, and recently at the Diego Rivera Gallery in San Francisco. He is currently a full time instructor for the School of Design at South Dakota State University.