masks from faces 1/4 Print

Chris Ritson was raised in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. It was in the particular tropical island environment that the influence of nature became the cornerstone of his intellectual pursuits and philosophical inquiries. While studying the sciences at the University of Hawaii and working on a shrimp hatchery, his interests shifted from biotechnology to the arts in order to explore how we make meaning in the context of our natural world. He later came to California where he completed his degree at SFAI in New Genres and lived for some time. His work has been featured across the USA as well as internationally in Taiwan, Korea, Australia and Europe. He now Lives and works atop Mt. Tantalus in Honolulu, Hawaii. The work of Chris Ritson serves to create dialogue with the environment and imagine new roles and modes of interacting with nature. Through this task, he elicits a different sort of art production that places value on natural systems and mankind's ability to integrate positively with them. He creates works which speak to our cultural anxieties and relationships with nature, analyzing the myths and prerogatives specific to a psychology of the self. Drawing his materials from the natural detritus of his immediate surroundings, Chris Ritson aims to reconfigure the most elemental substances into objects and phenomena that elicit unique temporal wonders.